A marble bust that thinks, and answers in his own voice.
Thinking Sculpture – William Morris
ANOR
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An AI-generated voice of William Morris, built from his letters and lectures.
ANOR
Thinking Sculpture – William Morris
ANOR
An AI-generated voice of William Morris, built from his letters and lectures.
ANOR is introducing a new way of experiencing art: Thinking Sculpture.
Sculpture is characterised by its physical presence. The traces of the artist’s hand create a direct sense of connection between the viewer, the maker and the object.
Thinking sculptures introduce an additional element to this connection. By piecing together the writings left behind by an artist and allowing them to ‘speak for themselves’, the artist takes on a new kind of presence around their work. In practice, a thinking sculpture is exhibited alongside a telephone which allows people to interact with an AI voice trained on the essays, correspondence, and history of the artist or person to whom the artwork is dedicated.
Our aim is to scale the production of thinking sculptures by using robotics to improve productivity and automate the crudest and most labour-intensive portion of the carving process, leaving the finishing touches to an expert sculptor.
The first thinking sculpture will be of William Morris, central figure in the British Arts and Crafts movement. We chose Morris because his belief that machines ought to serve humanity and facilitate craft is central to our company vision.
In News From Nowhere he wrote:
“All work which would be irksome to do by hand is done by immensely improved machinery; and in all work that it is a pleasure to do by hand, machinery is done without.” William Morris, News From Nowhere
Along these lines, our robots only rough-out the marble, not unlike how Canova and Rodin left it to their studio-assistants. Robotics-driven productivity improvements simultaneously free up time for craftspeople to pursue their art and bring costs down, thus increasing demand for their work.
The creation of a thinking sculpture of William Morris serves an important purpose today. Vast technological improvements in robotics and artificial intelligence can serve to free humanity from the soulless kind of labour that Morris called ‘useless toil’. However, if improperly directed, it can usher in an era of unprecedented spiritual and material immiseration by promoting the consumption of mass-produced ‘slop’. We have given craft’s most robust and articulate defender a voice so as to guide us at this pivotal moment in history.
Everything is in place for us to produce our first thinking sculpture. Our sister company, Gondor Industries, has a proven process for carving sculptures. We have commissioned a 3D sculptor to produce a digital model of the William Morris sculpture, and we have partnered with ElevenLabs to develop his voice — you can experience it on our website.
Gondor Industries, 86–90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom, is the data controller for this website. You can contact us at admin@gondorindustries.com.
If you press “Ask a question” and speak, your voice is sent to ElevenLabs, who convert it to text. Anthropic then generates the reply as William Morris, and ElevenLabs speaks it back to you. The transcript is also analysed to identify the subject and tone of the conversation, so we can see how the exhibit is used.
We rely on your consent, which you give by starting the conversation. You can withdraw it at any moment by ending the conversation.
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