Chess is a very unique game, the charm of which has captivated a wide range of people, from artists to casual players, from authors to ordinary folks, spreading easily worldwide and generating an unstoppable and extraordinary community of enthusiasts. One of the most exceptional features of chess, perhaps the root of its intrinsic appeal, is the discordance between the apparent simplicity provided by the game's appearance and the almost infinite complexity of possible combinations. In this sense, chess encapsulates the essence of the game, or rather the idea of the game itself according to some of the previous reflections proposed. Authors who see, in fact, in the definition of "game," a structure of rules that is more effective the simpler it is and in a high quantity of possible combinations resulting from the player's relationship with these rules, can be satisfied with a system that, through a simple board with 64 alternately colored squares and 32 pieces divided into 6 different roles, achieves a number of possible games so high that it can hardly be imagined. The actual calculation of the exact number of possible games is still under discussion, but it can range from 10^120 (the so-called Shannon Number), which includes positions that are actually illegal or not possible, to 10^40, in case of not counting ridiculous or obvious game-losing moves such as moving a queen to be immediately captured by a pawn without compensation. Such calculations date back to older times than one might think, as the Shannon number first appeared in a 1950 paper Programming a Computer for Playing Chess by Claude Shannon. Due to this unique and unparalleled characteristic not present in any other game, chess has often been taken as a model for the training of computing machines and AI (artificial intelligence), which in the 2000s have definitively reached the level of capabilities of Grand Masters (human) and succeeded in finding algorithmic methods of resolution and calculation of games.
In the artistic realm, the allure evoked by this game has not hesitated to make its mark, partly for the same reasons that have motivated computer environments. However, the outcomes have often marked different practices: in the case of Duchamp and Cage's exhibitions, for example, it is no coincidence that the American author was struck by chess precisely for its strong and rigid structure, which nonetheless allowed for a high degree of unpredictability due to the sheer number of combinations in relation to the players' actions. In relation to Cage's aesthetics, it is therefore not surprising that the operational matrix chosen by the author emphasizes the component of indeterminacy, inserting an additional level of entropy through sound. In this way, the final result is a substantial sonification of the game's data, in terms of covered positions.
The Mechanical Turk is a piece that draws inspiration from both this line of thought and the historical intertwining of chess and the evolution of artificial intelligence, with a subtle critique of how it has been presented to the public in more recent years. The Mechanical Turk, or Automaton Chess Player, was one of the first machines to attempt the challenge of pitting humans against automated beings in the realm of chess, but it turned out to be a simple hoax. Built in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen, this machine was an automaton purported to beat any human at chess. It consisted of a large base structure with an inlaid chessboard on top. Inside this container were supposed to be the mechanisms that allowed the automaton to function; however, the only mechanisms present were those on the front of the structure, whose purpose was solely to deceive visitors and players. Behind these mechanisms and gears was actually a human being manipulating the chess pieces from inside the "automaton" itself, creating the illusion that the entire operation was carried out by the mechanisms.
Nowadays, Mechanical Turk is also a term used by another famous company, which refers to "a crowdsourcing website with which businesses can hire remotely located 'crowdworkers' to perform discrete on-demand tasks that computers are currently unable to do as economically. It is operated under ****** Web Services." In simple terms, the image of AI is less different from the Mechanical Turk than one might expect: certainly, today's mechanisms are much more advanced (and digital) than those of 1770, but they still require a certain amount of manpower. In this case, human input is not direct, meaning it does not directly perform tasks like von Kempelen's automaton, but it is still necessary to input data into the databases used by each AI, in order to fuel the processes of Machine Learning, and to "train" them, i.e., to verify their behavior, effectiveness, and select and notify any erroneous behaviors.
The Mechanical Turk, for electronics and voices, is a musical piece currently composed of a Max/MSP patch that reproduces a real chessboard, usable from the outside through any controller equipped with a minimum number of pads (64) on which to place the pieces. This controller is used by the players/performers during the performance, who can move the pieces like on a real chessboard, but taking care to press the pads on which they are placed to send the signal to the system. The process occurs through MIDI signal mapping within the patch, which connects to the chessboard and thus reproduces and follows the same dynamics of the live version. For each filled square, therefore, there corresponds the triggering of a sine wave with completely random frequency, and in a small tribute to the Cage-Duchamp version, even the distribution of the sound front divides, in the possible sources, in a random manner.
The voices are used as an embodiment of the human component of the process, to reproduce the same dynamics of the original Mechanical Turk, which has a central role but is not seen (or, as in this case, heard). The voices, in fact, initially perform what is effectively lip-syncing, a practice of silent imitation of the previously recorded and electronically reproduced sound part. In this way, there is an initial artistic representation of the functioning of the false automaton (since the effect is observed but the triggering event is masked by something else), although in reversed roles, as the voices, which should be hidden, are displayed and pass off as their relative "mechanical" (= digital) equivalent, effectively reversing the dynamic from the machine competing with human abilities.
Subsequently, the piece evolves by introducing an additional and deeper level of interpretation: once the recorded text is exhausted, the voices actually begin to emit sounds into the microphone, uttering small consonants and incomplete words at an increasingly concise pace. These emissions, however, enter the microphone but do not come out of the speakers: inside the Max patch, they are used only as modulators in an envelope following process of the sine waves triggered by the chessboard, effectively turning it into a kind of large vocoder. In doing so, the synthetic and automatic machine truly transforms into a more human version, with sounds closer to typically vocal ones and in fact acquiring qualities that are less digital, less artificial. However, this happens without allowing the specific perception of human voices: their signal, not coming out of the audio system, is not perceived by the audience, and since the signal from the chessboard is louder, it is not recognized in any way as such. If it weren't for the live presence of the singers, one could assume that the entire piece is entirely pre-recorded and only played back live.
This compositional approach demonstrates an attitude that, in games, could be attributed to the mode of competition, namely Agon, regarding the game itself. However, the relationship with the musical part, besides having an underlying conceptual element that fulfills another meaning, actually occurs randomly, making Alea the predominant mode in this game piece. This piece is of particular interest precisely because of the differences in modes between the gaming and performative experiences, which should not detach or appear opposite, but should be organically balanced and integrated, interpenetrating each other in order to make the piece enjoyable from both perspectives.