Hermes-9

By Hao Li, Junrong Song, David Yip, Pan Hui

Installation & Interactive Art

Hermes-9 is an AI-driven interactive storytelling experience presented as a video installation. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic future where AI machines have replaced biological bodies. The story follows Hermes-9, a robot, and his master, an astronaut, as the audience explores his fragmented memories through interactive conversations. This non-linear narrative questions the relationship between humanity and technology such as AI, human subjectivity, and where technology will lead us.

The LLM, playing the role of Hermes-9, combining presets (such as the story’s background, Hermes-9's identity, personality, traits, memories, and other characterizations) obtained with methods such as prompt engineering, will respond to the audience through text and by selecting from its many memory fragments what it feels should be shown in light of the ongoing conversation. AI-generated video and sound form the memory fragments, the production of which blends Unreal Engine and generative AI technology.

Inspired by the Sphinx riddle, the interaction becomes a philosophical exchange: participants freely converse with Hermes-9, whose responses - generated by LLM - reflect its evolving self-awareness and existential unease. The narrative splinters dynamically, with each dialog choice triggering new AI-generated story branches and audio-visual "memory fragments," ensuring that no two experiences are alike. This fluidity blurs the lines between creator, machine, and participant, positioning the audience as co-architects of Hermes-9's emergent identity.

More than a technical experiment, Hermes-9 will attempt to reframe AI as both medium and existential interlocutor. By embedding participants in its recursive narrative loops, the work challenges anthropocentric notions of storytelling and identity. It asks: What is the relationship between technology and humans? How should humans behave in the face of technology? Where is technology (under human control) taking us? Utopia or panic? The installation offers no answers, but invites the audience to linger in the ambiguity of our common technological future.