The dog in Elen Braga’s Schatteke is barking gently, almost with a sense of despair. Its a special force dog, traumatised by a life of coded labour on demand, readjusted by its new owner. The dog as an automated machine, slowly regaining its ‘humanity’, is positioned across from the artist, repetitively trying to familiarise herself with the Flemish word for sweetheart. What does it mean to be gentle within the harsh confinements of digitized and binary structures? And what is gentle when behaviour is imposed?