Appropriate Response is a generative audio installation that creates a dynamic conversation between three television sets. It was created during a residency at ISEA 2008 in Singapore. Using sound clips harvested from local broadcasts, the televisions act as individuals engaged in an ongoing topical debate. Each individual shares a basic set of procedural rules and a 'cultural database' of clips from which to derive responses. They also develop 'personalities' to guide specific choices. Evolving over the course of the exhibition, new sound clips are gathered and old ones 'forgotten'.

Inspired by the proliferation of media in our information-saturated world, Appropriate Response comments on a cut-and-paste ethic that has arisen in contemporary discourse. It often seems a "logic of selection" is employed in which the juxtaposition of existing information fragments has become an accepted form of constructing an argument, without the need for synthesis or a cumulative rationale. Can it be appropriate to simply appropriate a response?

More information about the Appropriate Response can be found at Zach Poff's website.