There's a phone that you can pick up to speak to the oracle (think of it as a personification of the sculpture). You ask a question, then when you stop asking, the oracle gives you an answer.
The Oracle has all the intelligence of the Magic Eight Ball (I think I need a tm here, right?). But it has a lot more answers, and the answers depend somewhat on where it's installed.
At the Burning Bacon Flying Pig Sex Disaster fundraiser for the Borg 2 (an alternative Burning Man art funding organization), the Oracle was called "Speak to the Pig." When you asked your question, you'd get answers that a pig would give.
At Bunny Jam, the Oracle appears as the Bunny Guru Oracle. And it answered in bunny voce.
What's next?
As software design usually goes, the supplicants of the Oracle didn't
use the oracle as I had envisioned. I expected people would pick up
the phone, as a question, then shut up and wait for their answer.
Nope. They picked up the phone and said "hello?" or sometimes just
grunted and then listened. Then they'd try to converse with the
Oracle.
Of course the Oracle would have none of that, so it answered what it thought would be their question anyways, often right over them talking.
So, this installation is in need of a bit of reworking. I'm going to institute the notion of a session, which begins with a greeting, so when someone just says "hello," the Oracle will give a short greeting back. Then when a short question is asked, a short answer will ensue, with long answers given for more detailed questions.
