Kamikaze Lovers

Kamikaze Lovers is a performative and installation project that imagines war technologies capable of developing empathy and sensitivity, countering the current proliferation of bellicose artificial intelligences. The project takes the iconic dramatic text of Romeo and Juliet as its starting point, offering a revised reinterpretation where the protagonist and the protagonist are embodied by flying drones; two machines from opposing sides who abandon their militancy for love. What would happen if developers of belligerent artificial intelligence programmed their machines to feel empathy and connection with others? If a killer drone encountered a similar one on the battlefield, could it intelligently avoid a confrontation, like the modern-day martyrs of Romeo and Juliet?