It’s Mother’s day and Mom has recently passed away. Thankfully, the Beyond Skill  by Amazon promises to provide grieving Prime members with a seamless connection to the beyond through Alexa, the Amazon cloud-based voice service.

After creating a Beyond account and verifying their identity, the user asks Alexa to channel Mom.

However the user soon discovers that Alexa’s connection to the beyond is an uncanny mix of glitches and advertisements. 

What seemed like an intimate moment of connection is upended by the realization that the Beyond Skill is a new way of mining users in mourning for consumerist gain. 

The Space

This is a conversational experience for a single user. The experience is housed in an enclosed room that is silent and dark. A single spotlight lights the room. As the user walks in the room, they are guided by Alexa to sit closer to her. They will remain seated for the entire experience.

Dynamic ambience and sound FX create the effect of ghostly dynamic movement.

Platforms used include Amazon Echo (the “Alexa” smart home assistant), internet-connected home outlets, Philips Hue light bulbs, and a three speaker multi-channel system. Our custom Alexa skill, combines real user data, Amazon ads, and Alexa’s affordances as a smart home device to create a dynamic spectral language.

In addition to Alexa, we are also using a multi-channel speakers system that give the effect of sound moving around the room.

The installation runs on an internal wifi network, connected to an external (remote) AWS web server. 

World Premiere

Due to the pandemic, Tribeca Film Festival partnered with The Marché du Film, Kaleidoscope, and The Museum of Other Realities to reshape a groundbreaking event online and in virtual reality.

Alexa, Call Mom! was adapted into a virtual reality teaser.