Created by Julia Vollmer, To Heat a Candle with the Warmth of You explores the energy consumption of artificial intelligence through the medium of heat. Running a large language model (LLM) on a Raspberry Pi 4, the self-referencing system is prompted with “to heat a candle with the heat of you”. The resulting heat from the computation slowly melts and erodes the candle in the physical world.
Every machine-generated thought consumes power and produces heat: a silent, residual trace of its activity. While we cannot see energy directly, its byproduct heat offers a way to feel and sense the invisible processes shaping our world. On the consumer side, the underlying material realities of these tools remain largely hidden.
Julia Vollmer
While the device runs the large language model, the results of the prompt “to heat a candle with the warmth of you” are displayed on a screen. Through the heat and the weight of the device the candle melts and ultimately, the wax drips to the floor.
Through subverting the technology and reusing it mainly from a physical and material standpoint, Julia offers a speculative intervention towards the expanding use of artificial intelligence tools and making their ramifications perceivable in the immediate surrounding.
