Echo REIGN
2018
Commissioned by: Tactical Tech Berlin
Exhibitions: Glassroom San Francisco, US (2018)
What might the hidden products of the military and tech industry collaborations look like?
Echo REIGN is an interactive artwork that re-imagines the Amazon Echo and its ‘smart assistant’ Alexa as devices in the US Army’s ‘Internet of Battlefield Things Research on Evolving Intelligent Goal-driven Networks’ (IoBT REIGN) project. This version of the Echo emulates military build specifications, and includes a functional battlefield-optimised voice assistant, a parody of the supposed neutrality of Alexa and the data it captures and exploits. The interactive voice assistant is nameless, always listening, and never says please.
In Echo REIGN, the Echo is completely re-designed to conform to US mil-spec, whose focus on modularity and user-serviceability exposes the design decisions made by Amazon that obscure the function of the Echo’s seamless, opaque black box.
Through inverting the design of both the Echo and Alexa in these ways, Echo REIGN is not a work of speculation, but a manifestation that attempts to fill the gap between what we already know about the complex relationships between tech companies, universities, consumer devices, and weapons research.