MFT: Light Switch Twitterbot

It's always fun to experience a twitterbot. Sometimes it is just a stupid bingly-bing throwaway nil joke. Other times, it is enduring and engaging relationship to which you perpetually come back. Anyway, it is fascinating to observe different permutations and combinations of various words and images over long periods of time. It opens up new dimensions.

In every case - there is a lot chew. Because of that twitterbots are incredibly inspiring for me. They engage in a completely different, selfless kind of interaction - they show you something mildly unexpected out of absolutely ordinary. Some twitterbots go beyond that - to the very mundane.

Light Switch twitterbot is one of them. It was conceived in 2016 and ever since it was producing the most daring tweets that could be found on Twitter. Light Switch is self-describing kind of bot - there is nothing beyond. It is a bot that simply imitates operation of the light switch. Once in a while, no matter what. And nothing more.

There are two concepts in the heart of Light Switch Twitterbot. One is Marcel Duchamp's impish ready-mades. The other is Martin Creed's seminal "Work No. 227, The Lights Going On And Off" (which a slight elaboration upon ready-made concept). In some way, Light Switch can be viewed as riff or an adaptation of Creed's work.

Light Switch bot produces two kinds of tweets - either "on" or "off". While both are just the words - they have the concept behind them and you can't get away from it. The trick is simple: you can't help but tie "on" and "off" with the concept of light switch. This thing is instinctive. And so it all turns into imaginary light going on and off - imaginary space filled with light and plunged into darkness. It is a good exercise for imagination.

Light Switch is a celebration of the common mechanism that is used every day by everyone. It is disarming in its simplicity. The concept is displaced into words and confined in a completely different and unfitting realm while precisely replicating its original sequence. If you read this endless stream of "on"'s and "off"'s for a while - your head will start to look for something behind the world. Some kind of a diverting pattern, some form of a swing, a syncopation of sorts. That overthinking is the part of the bots operation. The gist of Light Switch is not the bot itself but happens in the head upon dealing with it.

There are over a thousand "on"'s and "off"'s and counting. It will go ad infinitum. It is beatiful.