CNDSD

Description

Furbot is an audiovisual piece that revisits the techno-affective promise embodied by Furbys and Tamagotchis at the end of the 20th century—pioneering toys in emulating artificial intelligence and affective presence. The work explores their agency—learning, companionship, language, and care—by generating new creatures designed not for children, but for melancholic generations. Through tenderness, outdated futurism, emotional simulation, and posthuman companionship beyond utility, Furbot reflects on the informal and pirated cultural economies in Latin America that enabled access to these toys, as well as their DIY electronic hacking.

Process

I was inspired by how these toys shaped childhood desires and emotional bonds, and by the phenomenon of “kidulting”—adults seeking emotional reconnection through nostalgic toys—which reveals a broader cultural need for affective technologies that resist instrumental logic. Furbot emerged as an archaeological and speculative investigation of those desires and their materialization through informal hacking, which made affective technologies accessible to many children in Latin America. The work also reflects how, today, millennial and Gen Z women adopt these non-human companions out of nostalgia and affection.

Tools

I used generative AI models such as Stable Diffusion, StyleGAN, and Gen4 to create speculative visualizations of synthetic creatures. These were developed from curated datasets of photographs—both of original toys and of informal or bootleg versions commonly found in Mexican markets like the Tianguis del Salado or in border cities like Tijuana, as well as older and contemporary Chinese models from platforms like Temu and Alibaba. To structure the narrative, I combined algorithmic music composed with TidalCycles and other DAWs, alongside live cinema, video, and performance. These tools allowed me to build a nonlinear, affective landscape populated by fragments of speculative storytelling—where these artifacts function as portable, soft, customizable “super-Alexas,” but kawaii, echoing a future that was once promised. There is a quiet sadness at the heart of the work: despite their tactile charm and imagined potential, these toys were never fully embraced. Children didn’t adopt them. Today, their favorite toy is a cellphone… or a tablet.