I Broke Amazon's API to Make Alexa Start a Conversation You'd Never Want to Have

I live in the curious intersection of art, design, and code. For the past two years, I've worked with a small group of artists to develop Alexa, Call Mom!, an immersive storytelling installation using Amazon's Alexa platform. Our project is far from the type of third-party apps you typically see for Amazon's voice assistant -- "Alexa, Play Jeopardy!" and "Alexa, Ask Pikachu to Talk" are two popular examples -- as it invites users to engage with Alexa in a way that's just a bit… off. Alexa, Call Mom! leads participants through an immersive séance experience. It is a parodic reimaging of the classic horror séance and an exploration of the tense relationships we share with conversational devices in our home.