Ghost Writer is a collaborative project between Svenja Kratz and Bill Hart. The work consists of a custom writing machine and video avatar that uses a trained neural network to produce an ongoing narrative written in the artist Svenja Kratz’s handwriting. The narrative is based on an original stream of consciousness text created by the artist that reflects on the prospect of separating the mind from the body and being resurrected as an artificial life entity or digital clone. The original narrative also includes a database of seminal essays written by prominent critical theorists, scientists and philosophers that engage with the mind/body problem and the idea of the posthuman. 

The AI engine re-combines and re-writes the original story to produce new texts. The machine also listens to its environment, which prompts its musings on the nature of its existence. The work encourages viewers to consider what constitutes identity and the self, and how consciousness may be altered if transferred into a machine or alternative technological body.

The project was exhibited as part of the Spare Parts exhibition at Science Gallery London in 2018 and was developed with support from the Creative Exchange Institute (CxI) and School of Creative Arts and Media at the University of Tasmania, Australia.