About the work
Our Humble Helpers is a web-based artwork that reimagines the 1918 public domain book of the same name by naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre, who affectionately chronicled “the denizens of the farmyard and the four-footed helpers in the field.” Fabre’s translated volume depicts bonds of care, humor, and camaraderie between humans and their farm animal companions.
In this contemporary reworking, each page begins with an illustration of a farm animal drawn from the original text. The text on each page presents a hybrid writing practice: fragments of Fabre’s prose are interlaced with new passages of my own and with unpredictable contributions from an AI text completion model (Mistral 7B). These overlapping voices are animated by subtle, atmospheric sound effects that the viewer starts and stops themselves as they read.
The resulting vignettes are poetic, playful, and sometimes absurd. They refract the lighthearted tone of Fabre’s natural and cultural history through lenses of literary history, translation, and machine-generated association. By weaving together the traces of an author’s voice, and those of the anonymous public (via the AI), Our Humble Helpers meditates on poetic collaboration across species, technologies, and centuries.
About the artist
Daniel Lichtman’s research and creative work centers around community-oriented processes of interactive
storytelling. Lichtman is particularly interested in how communities can use techniques of game design to tell
stories about their own culture and heritage, and to speculate upon their possible futures. Lichtman is also
interested in poetic and literary collaborations with AI that explore non-human or more-than-human expressions
of vulnerability and spirituality. Lichtman’s work has been presented at BRIC Arts and Media House, The Queens
Museum, ICA (London), CICA Museum (Korea) and other national and international venues. Lichtman is Assistant
Professor of Game Development and Emerging Media at St. John’s University in New York. Lichtman previously
taught in the New Media Arts program at Baruch.
Dan Lichtman's Website