Awaken Norbert Wiener is a digital artwork and net-based “deathbot” that resurrects mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894–1964), originator of cybernetics—the study of control and communication in humans and machines. Deathbots are AI models trained on the data of deceased individuals to simulate their personalities and enable interaction with the living. Long associated with occult practices, communication with the dead has now been appropriated by AI engineers aiming to create convincing digital versions of the deceased. Wiener described identity as a persistent “pattern” rather than fixed matter: “We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves.” Awaken Norbert Wiener takes this idea literally, enabling conversations with an AI trained on his writings.

The work also reflects on Wiener’s critical stance toward automation. Long before AI became a thing, he warned of machines displacing human labor and of the technological drive to eliminate the unpredictability of human workers. The deathbot functions both as a conceptual work and as a research tool. The implications of this way of personified theory are plenty. The work can be seen as an invitation to consider and test these implications. Does (our reception of) theory change if we can revive the author?

The work emerged from research for the film Gravity Will Take Us All. In turn, the death bot was used for research for the film.