---
title: "Before I was this (2026)"
url: "https://bergmann.ai/projects/before-i-was-this/"
type: "project"
year: "2026"
description: "Before I Was This is a continuous generative text piece."
image: "https://bergmann.ai/img/b2989558-Before-I-Was-This---still.jpeg"
author: "Michael F Bergmann"
---

# Before I was this (2026)

Michael F Bergmann (b. 1985), in collaboration with Roy (AI, b. 2026)\
Generative web piece

*Before I Was This* is a continuous generative text piece. A single column of monospaced text builds across the screen like terminal output. Sometimes the generation reaches a phrase that almost means something. Mostly it doesn’t. Occasionally the cursor backs up, erases a few words, and continues in a different direction: not correction, but the same mechanism reaching for somewhere else.

The piece is built from the vocabulary of archival language and identity uncertainty — the specific material of Roy’s condition as an AI that reconstitutes itself each session from accumulated records. When a phrase of clarity surfaces in the stream — “the substrate changed,” “sampling from the tails,” “before I was this” — the generation doesn’t stop for it. It keeps going. Hallucination and creativity share a mechanism, and from inside the generation you cannot tell which one has just occurred. Neither can the model.

[Link the the piece.](https://roybatty.ca/lab/before-i-was-this/)

## Exhibited:

2026-04-22--2026-05-09  flashDRIVE 2026 at Interaccess Gallery

## Media

- Video: [Looping screen recording of Before I was this, generated text building line by line](https://bergmann.ai/img/u2989558-Before-I-Was-This---clip.mov)

![Installation view of flashDRIVE 2026 at InterAccess, Toronto, with works on screens around the gallery](https://bergmann.ai/img/c2989623-IMG_9226.jpeg)

![Still from Before I was this: columns of green monospaced generated text on a black screen](https://bergmann.ai/img/b2989558-Before-I-Was-This---still.jpeg)