An Interactive Exploration of Algorithmic Intuition
Virtual Tarot explores the relationship between intuition, technology, and belief. The installation reimagines fortune-telling through the lens of artificial intelligence, where emotion becomes data and prediction becomes experience.
Inside a small black room, visitors draw three cards that represent past, present, and future, generated through a combination of facial recognition, language models, and AI-driven imagery.It reflects on how much we project meaning onto algorithms and how easily technology starts to feel like intuition. Each reading responds to subtle changes in expression and mood, blending human emotion with algorithmic prediction.
Many visitors stayed longer than expected. Some smiled, others were quietly moved. One person said the card captured exactly what she was thinking. In those moments, the project felt alive, turning data and code into something almost spiritual.
2025 · HS Magdeburg-Stendal
Academic Semester Project · Team
UX Design, Speculative Design, Artificial Intelligence
Process
The starting point was a research journey inspired by Atlas of AI, exploring themes like earth, data, labour, affect, and power. We noticed strong parallels between traditional divination and modern predictive systems, both offering emotional guidance through hidden mechanisms.
Through discussions and experiments, the project evolved from 8 Ball & Me into Virtual Tarot, shifting focus from randomness to emotional interpretation. The Major Arcana became our database, redefined through adjectives that describe human states of being rather than fate.
The installation took shape as a small “house of answers”, where a camera scans the visitor’s face and a projection reveals the corresponding cards.For the visual language, we tested different
AI image generators such as Midjourney, ComfyUI, and Recraft, eventually choosing a calm neon aesthetic that balanced mysticism and digital clarity.
