YOUR UPDATE HAS FAILED is an interactive browser and WebXR experience tracing the digital evolution of SOGICE — sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts. These interventions seek to change or suppress LGBTQIA+ people’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression.
Project description
A computer anchors the narrative as three composite lives unfold across 1997, 2003, 2016, and 2026, each in a room shaped by its era. SOGICE’s forms evolve: printed questionnaires become software, then wellness platforms, moderation tools, and eventually AI-driven systems that classify and collect data. Blending documented practices with imagined scenes, the work reveals SOGICE not as a single event but as a digital ecosystem spanning “ex-gay” testimonies, promotional videos, exercises, prayers, and data systems. Language shifts toward care and progress, but the pressure to conform remains.
With each update, the system appears new; with each restart, it enters another era; and with every glitch, its limits are exposed. Visitors navigate through a headset, desktop, or phone, clicking, reading, and turning to explore the changing rooms. A dossier accompanies the work, linking sources with the narrative. SOGICE’s apparatus adapts and renews its promise of correction, but its failure endures: queer life persists.
Screenings
15-21 October 2026 — “After Virtual Reality” Exhibition, XDN’s Work-In-Progress, CDN, USF and Bergen Film Festival (BIFF), Bergen, Norway
Research & talks
20 October 2026 — “YOUR UPDATE HAS FAILED: Making and Failing with Generative AI and the Weaponization of Care”, Sérgio Galvão Roxo — After Virtual Reality: Extending Immersive Narrative Symposium, Center for Digital Narrative, University of Bergen, Bergen
Credits
Created by — Sérgio Galvão Roxo
Collaboration — Pedro Velho