Antennae Issue 9, Spring 2009 ISSN 1756-9575
Mechanical Animals Massimiliano Lisa and Mario Taddei A Tribute to the King of France Carol Gigliotti Leonardo’s Choice / Artificial Life and the Live of the Non-Humans France Cadet Dog[lab]01, Ken Rinaldo In Conversation With, Metin Sitti The Evolution of Nano Robots, Minsoo Kang The Ambivalent Power of the Robot, David Bowen On Growth and Form Bjoern Schuelke Mechanic Diversity Leonel Moura Robotarium X Grant Morrison We3 Jessica Joslin Myth and Magic Matthew Chrulew The Beast-Machine Fableaux Wonderland
Antennae
The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture
Editor in Chief Giovanni Aloi
Academic Board Steve Baker Ron Broglio Matthew Brower Eric Brown Donna Haraway Linda Kalof Rosemarie McGoldrick Rachel Poliquin Annie Potts Ken Rinaldo Jessica Ullrich
Advisory Board Bergit Arrends Rod Bennison Claude d’Anthenaise Lisa Brown Chris Hunter Karen Knorr Paula Lee Susan Nance Andrea Roe David Rothenberg Nigel Rothfels Angela Singer Mark Wilson & Bryndís Snaebjornsdottir
Global Contributors Sonja Britz Tim Chamberlain Lucy Davies Amy Fletcher Carolina Parra Zoe Peled Julien Salaud Paul Thomas Sabrina Tonutti Johanna Willenfelt Claudia Zanfi and Gianmaria Conti
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EDITORIAL ANTENNAE ISSUE 9
echanical Animals marks the beginning of Antennae’s third year of activity and in a number of ways, it is our most ambitious issue to date. The main theme gathers together the work of a number of artists, scientists, and academics who over the past decade have relentlessly contributed to the creating, researching, and theorising M of the cross-fields between nature and robotics. The issue resembles a journey of discovery into a fascinating alternative reality where the boundaries nature and technology are deceptively and at times disturbingly blurred. Beginning with a challenging reconstruction of one of Leonardo’s lost robots, Mechanical Animals thoroughly explores the work of ground-breaking artists Ken Rinaldo and France Cadet through a theoretical frame designed by Carol Gigliotti. The work of artists Bjoern Schuelke, Leonel Moura, David Bowen and the nano-creations of scientist Metin Sitti function as departure points from a highly original essay by Minsoo Kang which questions ideals about our emotional, imaginative, and intellectual reactions to the illusion that robots are alive or lifelike. This essay presents theories from psychology, philosophy, and history as well as contemporary theories surrounding the acceptance of robots in human cultures in creating an evolved human/machine nature. The stark multidisciplinary approach of this issue takes us to the final stage of our investigation through the work of Grant Morrison: the international leading comic writer whose seminal work We3 has set the standards for contemporary graphic novels, talks to us about his robotic-animal heroes. The uncanny sculptures of Jessica Joslin, bordering between myth and magic lead us to conclude with a fantastic steampunk fable by Matthew Chrulew. Mechanical Animals also is Antennae’s first issue to be published with the full collaboration and support of a Senior Academic Board, Advisory Board and network of Global Contributors. The contribution of all involved has been outstanding and I consider myself extremely lucky to have the opportunity to work with such talented and inspirational teams.
A special ‘thank you’ goes to Ken Rinaldo, whose input to ‘Mechanical Animals’ has been most defining.
Giovanni Aloi
Editor in Chief of Antennae Project
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CONTENTS ANTENNAE ISSUE 9
5 A Tribute to the King of France Researching the original documents of Leonardo and discovering new and groundbreaking evidence, Mario Taddei of the research centre Leonardo3 has relentlessly worked on the realisation of the artist’s lost robots. The result is a truly fascinating book and an international touring exhibition. Text by Massimiliano Lisa, Studies by Mario Taddei
10 Leonardo’s Choice Leonardo’s Choice: genetic technologies and animals is an edited interdisciplinary collection of twelve essays and one dialogue focusing on the use of animals in biotechnology and the profoundly disastrous effects of this use both for animals and us. We discuss animals, A-Life, the work of France Cadet, Ken Rinaldo and more with Carol Gigliotti Interview by Giovanni Aloi
17 Artificial Life and the Live of the Non-Humans Carol Gigliotti talks animals, A-life and the work of Ken Rinaldo and France Cadet. Text by Carol Gigliotti
23 France Cadet: Dog[lab]01 France Cadet, is a French Artist whose work raises questions about various aspects in science debates: danger of possible accidents, observation of animal and human behaviour, artificialisation of life, side effects of cloning... Text by France Cadet; Interviews by Sonja Britz
32 In Conversation With Ken Rinaldo Ken Rinaldo is an American artist and educator whose work focuses on interactive art installations that explore the intersection between natural and technological systems. He intends his robotic and bio-art installations to merge the organic and electro-mechanical elements seamlessly, to express a gentle symbiosis. Interview by Giovanni Aloi
42 The Evolution of Nano Robots Metin Sitti is Associate Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and is a pioneer in nanomanufacturing, haptic interfaces, and tele-robotics. We asked him about the inspiration animals provide to his practice Interview by Paul Thomas
47 The Ambivalent Power of the Robot Minsoo Kang, questions ideals about our emotional, imaginative and intellectual reactions to the illusion that robots are alive or lifelike. This essay presents theories from psychology, philosophy, history as well as contemporary theories surrounding the acceptance of robots in human cultures in creating an evolved human/machine nature. Text by Minsoo Kang
59 David Bowen: on Growth and Form David Bowen is interested in the outcomes that occur when machines interact with the natural world. He has exhibited his work internationally and is currently Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Text by Scott Stulen Interview by Giovanni Aloi
69 Bjoern Schuelke and Mechanic Diversity Bjoern Schuelke designs objects that playfully transform live spatial energy into active responses in sculptural form. Born form a world of stuffed animals, spaceships, unusual scientific instruments and robots, some of these pieces also employ alternative energy sources– and speak powerfully to the environmental concerns of today. Text and Interview by Julien Salaud
73 Leonel Moura: Robotarium X Robotarium X, the first zoo for artificial life, approaches robots very much in the way as we are used to look at natural life. We met with Leonel Moura to discuss his original take on robotics. Text by Leonel Moura, Interview by Paula Lee
82 Grant Morrison: Robot We3 Grant Morrison is a prolific comic writer who has tackled animal issues in a number of his stories. One of the most well known of these is We3, a three-issue comic about animal cyborgs that turn against their human creators. x Interview by Lisa Brown
88 Jessica Joslin: Myth and Magic The creatures that make up Jessica Joslin's world are specimens of unknown species, captured from the collision of myth and science. They are constructed and formed through an intricate fusion of bone, brass, antique hardware and other delicate fragments. Text by Kathleen Vanesian Interview by Lisa Brown
99 The Beast-Machine Fableaux This issue of Antennae comes to a close with an original animal philosophy-based steampunk fable by experimental writer Matthew Chrulew Text by Matthew Chrulew 4 Front Cover Image “Hunting Trophies” (deer) robot, wooden panel, 2008 France Cadet
A TRIBUTE TO THE
KING OF
FRANCE
Researching the original documents of Leonardo and discovering new and groundbreaking evidence, Mario Taddei of the research centre Leonardo3 has relentlessly worked on the realisation of the artist’s lost robots. The result is a truly fascinating book and an international touring exhibition. Text by Massimiliano Lisa, Studies by Mario Taddei
Mario Taddei Frame for the mechanical lion, complete of spring engine. Leonardo3 5
"The way of making lions walk by means of wheels". s a great observer of nature, Leonardo wrote brief notes about many animals. He described On 12 July 1515, the new King of France, Francis I, made details of the lion (1) such as the fact that it A does not extend its claws until it is on its prey, his triumphant entry into Lyons. Among those who that the lioness lowers her eyes when faced with welcomed him was the Florentine community of weapons and that these animals are afraid of "the din of merchants and bankers who were assigned to work in empty carts as well as the crowing of cockerels". In the French city, which explains why Leonardo was commissioned to construct a mechanical lion. The order regard to the idea that animals have a better sense of came from the Governor of Florence, Lorenzo di Piero smell than humans, Leonardo wrote: "I have seen in the de' Medici, the backer of the community in Lyons, for lion species that the sense of smell composes part of the whom, that same year, the genius da Vinci was already brain, which descends through a large cavity towards the scent, which enters via a large number of cartilaginous designing a palace in Florence. The gesture was a tribute sacs, with many nerves leading to the brain itself'. (2) to the powerful monarch with whom Pope Leo X This description lead us to believe that Leonardo not (another member of the Medici family) wanted to form a only observed these animals directly, but that he close alliance. The lion was designed and built in dissected them. It is possible that he might have studied Florence, then sent to Lyons. This particular animal was them in Florence toward the end of 1513, when lions chosen because it represents Florence. The lilies were were kept in an enclosure behind the Palazzo della chosen, because they appear on the coats-of-arms of Signoria. Today the street between Piazza San Firen;te both France and Florence. Moreover, the Lyons coat-of- and Logge del Grano is still called Via dei Leoni (Lion arms consists of a lion surrounded by lilies, and of course there is the reference to the name of the city, which Street). derives from the Celtic god Lug, often depicted However, what we now consider as the accompanied by a boar: over time, this was probably quintessential robot, a lion able to walk unaided and changed to a lion. whose chest opens up, is not the work of Leonardo. Not one of his drawings or notes has been found makes any According to documents published under the reference to it. All the reports are by later name of Edmondo Solmi, another mechanical lion commentators. Vasari wrote: appeared on 30 September 1517 when Francis I entered Argentan, and again on his entry to Amboise in 1518. "In due course, the King of France came to Milan and when Considering that Leonardo was then in the service of the Leonardo was asked to make something fantastic he built a French King and that from 1516 he actually lived in lion that could walk a few steps, then opened its chest, Amboise, it is entirely credible that this was the which was filled with lilies". automaton he created. In addition, many other automata would soon be seen in Lyons, as well as the famous Describing the banquet on 5 October 1600 for the cockerel in the Lyons astronomical clock, so it's quite wedding of Maria de' Medici and Henry IV, King of possible that Leonardo's lion prompted other inventors France, Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger referred to in France (e.g. Maillard and Vaucanson) to create robots, the appearance of a lion which: perhaps based directly on the mechanisms Leonardo himself used. "began to move, and rising in two movements, opened its The accounts quoted here suggest that da chest, which was seen to be full of lilies". Vinci's mechanical lion did exist but now we have come to the point where we have to rely on educated Buonarroti pointed out that this was: guesswork, How was it able to move? Probably by means of some kind of spring-driven gear mechanism. "a similar idea to the one Leonardo da Vinci used in Lyons The American expert on robots, Mark Rosheim, on behalf of the Florentine nation when King Francis came maintains that even with today's technology it is a to visit". complicated task to make a robotic animal walk, so he suggests that the automaton was probably made as part In 1584 Giovan Paolo Lomazzo describes what he of a self-propelling cart and that therefore it would have learned from Francesco Melzi, Leonardo's favorite pupil moved on wheels. who inherited all his manuscripts: On the other hand, in April 2006, as part of ''The Mind of Leonardo" Exhibition at the Uffizi Galleries "once in front of Francis I, King of France, he made a in Florence, Luca Garai, an expert on antique robots, wonderfully and cleverly made lion walk from his place in proved that it is possible to build a spring-operated lion. the room; it then stopped and opened its chest which was In fact, he designed his mechanical animal on the basis of filled with lilies and various other flowers". studies of the mechanisms of French automata of the period, which we may assume contained ideas that had Lomazzo again, in 1590, notes among Leonardo's been passed down from Leonardo's lion and developed technical exploits: in a variety of self-propelled machines until the end of the 18th century. In particular, Garai based his ideas on 6
Luca Garai The CAD design for the mechanisms inside Garai’s lion, 2007
the 1773 horse by the Frenchman, M, Maillard (3) which connects the front paws to the back paws, producing an used gears that had been known since the end of the alternate movement, like a pendulum. In the second 15th century. In fact, according to Garai, Maillard's movement, after a few steps, a gear activates a second pendulum was similar to Leonardo's designs on folio mechanism, which folds the back paws 90 degrees 1077r of the Codex Atlanticus. That's exactly why Garai toward the chest. The lion stops, then sits on its chose Mail~ lard. On that basis, in 2006, Garai haunches. A spring returns the gear connected to the tail constructed a 60 x 30 x 60 cm (23.6 x 11.8 x 23.6 in) to its place. In the third movement, springs placed in the working model made of metal, papier and cloth, which chest raise the lion's tail. At the same time a spring raises he described as follows: "The lion performs three the front legs to chest height, giving the impression that it successive movements controlled by a triple spring. First is the paws that open the trapdoor and let out the it walks (and its head moves) for a short distance, Then it bouquet of flowers, which are made of pliable material". squats on its hind legs, moving its tail. Finally, the Garai's work is extremely interesting, but the trapdoor in its chest opens and a bouquet of lilies comes reconstruction is based on conflicting historical sources. out. In the first movement the spring activates a pair In fact, Maillard's automaton was a toy horse and in of levers along the length of the body. Each lever order to move forward it had to be supported on a 7
Mario Taddei All the lion's components reconstructed in 2007 by Mario Taddei of Leonardo3 ready for assembly Leonardo3
carriage in back; without the carriage the horse could wrote cannot necessarily be taken literally and is of not even stand It is very difficult to imitate the human or limited assistance in any attempt to create an exact animal gait in robots, to make an android walk on legs or reconstruction. a mechanical animal on its paws. This has been In any case, if we read what they wrote it is accomplished only recently. Usually, mechanical walking only Buonarotti's Oescrizione delle felicissime nozze,,, was an imitation, the automata moved on wheels hidden that mentions a lion that stands up and that's another in the feet or by connections to the wheels of a carriage, lion, made for the celebrations in 1600, not the one by as in Maillard's "robot". The movement of the feet was Leonardo. So we think that in trying to reconstruct only for appearance, wheels hidden in the feet or by Leonardo's lion it would be more accurate to ignore the connections to the wheels of a carriage, as in Maillard's fact that it was supposed to stand up. "robot". The movement of the feet was only for What we can gather from comparing the appearance, without any function that would support or accounts is that the robot in question must at least have move the model. In folio 1077r of the Codex Atlanticus looked like a lion, that it was able to move forward, there is nothing that resembles a mechanical lion. perhaps with a motion similar to that of a cat, and that it As we have seen, it is difficult to understand this certainly worked by means of gears. Once it stopped robot because there are no documents by Leonardo walking, it must have produced or dropped a few that refer clearly and directly to the design. All that is left flowers, which had probably been held in a space at the are a few clues, which makes reconstructing it an even front, or in its mouth. more mysterious and fascinating project. Several fantastic Page 1 9 of the book by Michelangelo drawings have been made of this lion, which is often Buonarroti reads: " ... Marvel of marvels, a proud lion depicted as being gilded, standing on its hind legs with emerged on the table in the middle and standing up on the lilies spilling from its open chest in front of the King its four feet, began to move and, in two movements, was of France. However, there is no witnessed personal seen to open its chest, showing it to be full of flowers account of its existence. Vasari, Lomazzo and Buonarroti which quickly transformed themselves into a two-headed all report accounts given by other people, so what they eagle: a similar idea to the one Leonardo da Vinci used 8
for the Florentine nation on the arrival of King Francis in the City of Lyons. But the folds most used for posies and tufts of leaves seemed to have certain ribs acting as niches, bent and drawn up in various distortions…”.
Notes
(1) Manuscript H, folio 22
(2) Dell'Anatomia, folio B, fol 13v, p. 87
(3) See volume 6 of Machines et inventions approuvees par I'Academie royale des sciences depuis son etablissement ", edited by Jean-Gaffin
Gallon, Paris, 1754
For more information please visit www. http://www.leonardo3.net
Copyright of Images and Text Leonardo 3 all rights reserved
‘A Tribute to the King of France’ is an extract from Chapter 4 – The
Mechanical Lion – reprinted with permission of editors and author from
the book ‘Leonardo da Vinci’s Robots’ – New mechanics and new
automata found in codices, published by Leonardo 3 srl, first edition,
September 2007.
Massimiliano Lisa is Leonardo3's President. He has been a publisher and journalist for 20 years, with experience in books, magazines,
multimedia and television programs. He coauthored the book Da Vinci's Workshop and
supervised the whole project related to the Book of Secrets.
Mario Taddei was a professor at the Milan University of Design (former
Politecnico di Milano) with a degree in Industrial Design. He has headed many projects about innovative installations for museums. He is the
author of many books and has been awarded several prizes. His book "Leonardo's Machines: Da Vinci's Inventions Revealed" was translated into
20 languages. He has been studying da Vinci for years and has co- authored new discoveries on the subject. He is Leonardo3's
(www.leonardo3.net) technical director and one of its chief researchers.
Taddei is an expert in multimedia and edutainment for museums, a
Leonardo da Vinci devotee and scholar, and an expert in the codexes and
machines of da Vinci and ancient books of technology. In the 2008 he
studied for the first time "The Book of Secrets" (Kitab al-Asrar) of the
1000DC Arabic scientist Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi. The complete and unique
study of all "The Book of Secrets", all his machines and the pages are
shown in the the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha
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LEONARDO’S CHOICE
‘Leonardo’s Choice: genetic technologies and animals’ is an edited interdisciplinary collection focusing on the use of animals in biotechnology and the profoundly disastrous effects of this use both for animals and us. We discuss animals, A-Life, the work
of France Cadet, Ken Rinaldo and more with Carol Gigliotti Interview by Giovanni Aloi
s editor of this collection, my essay “Leonardo’s Since the publication of the journal issue, the growth of Choice: the ethics of artists working with genetic biotech and genetic technologies has been formidable, A technologies” grew out of an increasing concern, but the questions and issues forthcoming from the use of not only about the risks of genetic technologies in animals in these areas have only grown more urgent. general, but also with a growing genre of art practice involving genetic technologies and the non-human. While You are a writer, artist, ethicist, educator, and some of the work in this art genre aims to question the animal rights advocate who presently is associate corporate uses of genetic technologies, I wanted to professor of interactive media and also critical investigate if using the methodologies of a science that and cultural studies at Emily Carr University of still posits human beings as the centre and rationale of all Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia. endeavors, and nature and the non-human as mere How did your strong interest in animals develop resources, would only serve to reinforce that and how does it manifest in your faceted anthropocentric view in the arts and corresponding professional career? cultural arenas. I began with the belief that whether the object of genetic modification or transference is plant, My interest in animals began very early in my life with an animal, or tissue, one needs to question and confront the affinity for those in my immediate world: birds, dogs, cats, ethical impact that instance of commodification and insects, the pig at the farm down the road, but colonization will have on the future of a naturally blossomed during my early twenties into a commitment occurring biodiversity, and on the individual lives of non- and way of perceiving the world. Everything I had humans involved. intuited previously came together in a moment at the In this way, the collection makes a useful Brookfield Zoo in Chicago when I saw an orangutan for contribution to a growing discussion in both academic the first time. He was sitting very close to the bars of his and public forums concerning ethics and animals. Seven cage and so I was able to be quite close to him of the essays were published in 2006 with an physically. We gazed directly into each other’s eyes for introduction and photos of animals in laboratory settings what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few in a special issue of the Springer journal AI & Society. As minutes. That experience with that particular captive guest editor, I invited contributors from the disciplines of orangutan changed my life. I never again looked at philosophy, cultural, art, and literary theory, and history animals as anything else but sentient and equal beings. and theory of science, as well as environmental studies, This experience in the last year of university to respond to the topics in my essay. The authors replied shifted how I wanted to communicate those ideas. with unique perspectives on the broad and multiple Instead of concentrating on theatre and performance, in layers of meanings and values called into question by which I had been very active since grade school and these themes. The volume at hand continues to be through university, I began to paint and make prints. structured and integrated around the central theme of Once out of university, while living on an island off the the use of animals in biotechnologies, but adds coast of South Carolina in the States, I began a series of perspectives from law, landscape architecture, history, prints and drawings about our relationships with animals. geography, and cultural studies. Included authors span This work concerning animals continued through three continents and four countries. receiving my M.F.A. in printmaking (I also did a 10
performance piece as part of my graduate exhibition) human forms of languages and communication But, the and after in my professional art practice and exhibition. I connection between imagination, creativity, and ethical concentrated on work about factory farming and animal judgment is too rich to be dismissed and complements experimentation while living and teaching in Washington, that knowledge. DC. I continued focusing on these ideas through my work in animation and interactive media while obtaining In 2005 you wrote an extremely interesting essay my doctorate at the Advanced Computing Center for titled “Artificial Life and the Lives of the Non- the Arts in Design at Ohio State University. Human.” In this essay you explore the work of Originally seeing virtual technologies as ways of Kenneth Rinaldo and France Cadet. What drew allowing people to be immersed in what might be the you to the work of these specific artists? perspective of an animal and also fascinated with the intellectual ideas this new media generated, I began to I knew Ken and was familiar with his work for a number see first hand how current technological development of years before I wrote this essay. An editor at Parachute was becoming yet another way of separating us from the asked me to write an essay for an issue they were doing natural world and an embodied understanding of values. on artificial intelligence and I felt Ken’s work would lend Combining this interest in the ethical issues of interactive itself to what I wanted to discuss in this essay about a-life. technological design with its impact on how we relate to I had written about AI and A-life before, but I wanted to the natural world and all its inhabitants, I began to focus specifically on issues concerning how the underlying prioritize writing as my preferred avenue of investigating thought and assumptions in these technologies have and communicating these ideas. For me, thinking about reinforced negative ideas about animals. Ken’s use of fish ethics and technologies has always been bound up with brought up many of these issues in particular ways and my continuing concern and commitment to the agency also led to connected ideas about technological research of the natural world and the fact that we as humans are and development. I was very happy to come across animals too. All of my art practice and writing have been France’s work during my research since I felt she was driven by these concerns. asking pertinent questions about animal agency in her work without using live animals. I felt her work illustrated Your undergraduate degree was in Oral the concerns and worries of genetic technologies Interpretation/Performance Studies. How has this through the use of robotics thereby offering visible links informed your career development and focus on between their fundamental goals. animals? In this essay we read that “Concurrently in A great question, since my experience as an actress and science and in art, the interdisciplinary field a performer have influenced my interests in art animals, known as a-life has been developing over the ethics, new media and technology in deep and multiple last twenty years or so. Artificial life, or a-life, ways. Acting or performing offers one the opportunity to is ‘concerned with both the creation and study imagine oneself in the body of another being, to imagine of artificial systems that mimic or manifest the being another for a time. Although I have to say this is properties of living systems.’ Distinguishing not true for everyone, of course, that experience offers itself from artificial intelligence in both the actor, or anyone else who decides to give it a try, a methodology and goals, proponents of a-life chance to understand how and why another person or rely on a bottom-up approach rather than on being might move and act in the world from their unique the top-down approach of AI. Instead of point of view and their physical way of being in the attempting to create centralized computer world. This experience leads to a more empathic programs that might think, a-life methodologies understanding of what it might it might be like to be a rely on developing computational behavioural bat, for instance, to refer to Thomas Nagel’s famous parts operating in parallel, and from which question. Despite Nagel’s conclusions, I would agree with unspecified behaviour might arise. These Elizabeth Costello (and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson methodologies rely on a synthetic approach in in their seminal book on metaphor and moral which, rather than studying biological imagination, Philosophy in the Flesh) in J.M. Coetzee’s The phenomena by taking apart living organisms to Lives of Animals when she says, “there are no bounds to see how they work, one attempts to put the sympathetic imagination” (p. 35). This kind of together systems that behave like living empathic understanding is what underlies value organisms.” In what capacities can this judgments about what we share, or don’t share, with “reversed methodology” be seen as other people and of course, animals. The fact that our productive? imagination is very much a bodily capacity is something I discovered and practiced through acting. I brought that These approaches to artificial life have been both knowledge to my writing and practice with interactive productive and unproductive. As in any situation, one has new media. This is not to say we should disregard the to ask, productive for whom? One of the more positive immense amount of research on understanding non- aspects of this approach not just for a-life development,
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Ken Rinaldo 3D Visualisations of Augmented Fish Reality Installation 2004 Ken Rinaldo
but for biological understanding is the increased interest These approaches have been less than helpful when used in the situated, dynamic, and embodied context of in reductive or superficial ways. It seems at times, a cognition in various species from the simplest to the matter of taking one step forward and two steps back. more complex. Inspired by research in biology and other Researchers in artificial life and robotic research in many areas of cognitive science, looking for cognitive capacities cases have adopted these methodologies and drawn and actions specifically in reaction to a changing inspirations from nature for reasons having to do with environment allowed scientists to recognize cognition the desire to create emergent behaviour and artificial life when studying simper living organisms. This shift in they assumed will be better than what has emerged thinking broke the stranglehold behaviourism had held naturally. In addition, conclusions drawn from the study since the 19th century. The ways in which these ideas are of a-life’s emergent behaviour professing to answer being used in cognitive ethology (the field study of animal fundamental questions about natural evolution, behaviour and intelligence) have been very helpful in behaviour, intelligence, cognition, consciousness or life, at introducing obvious and not so obvious examples of best, are unhelpful and wrong-headed and, at worst, very non-human intelligence into the scientific milieu. counterproductive in understanding the biological world
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in which we actually live. robotic dogs, made in the likenesses of well–known instances of genetically modified animals, set up scenarios In a number of his works, Rinaldo has successfully in which viewers may ponder the ludicrousness of poorly created “interactive spaces for animals and conceived human invention. The dogs, aside from being humans to connect.” How effective to the end of working robots, modified by Cadet from the I-CYBIE developing human-animal communication do you robots from TIGER & Silverlit, are combinations of consider these works to be? various percentages of other “animals.” Without using live animals, Cadet has used a related technology, I don’t think Ken’s pieces have successfully done this, nor robotics, to describe in an ironically horrific, but plausible do I think animals and humans connecting can ever be manner, how futures for transgenic animals might unfold. scripted. The majority of art pieces using captive live animals in most cases infringe on the animal’s welfare or You have stated: “the essence of living art can be agency in some way. That being said, I am not saying the found at the nexus with ethics.” In your goal of connecting humans and animals or providing contribution to The Digital Dialectic: New Essays spaces for them to connect is a bad one. Unfortunately on New Media, published by MIT Press in 1999, for the animals, however, most live animals used in art you also emphasized the need for artists and pieces will always be in a captive situation, even those their formal teachers to challenge their own pieces made by artists that look out for their welfare received perceptions of how computer technology and/or even may be interested in animal agency. I would is created and used. How do you think this refer the reader to the online discussion from h- challenge was received, how did it affect animal.net that was reprinted in the Antennae Issue 5 in perceptions and did this develop into new response to Marco Evaristti’s piece Helena, in which the approaches? subject of using live animals in art, often ending in their demise, sparked quite a heated discussion. In fact, the I think that quote was a paraphrase of something I said original discussion on h-animal.net is even more to Tim Greenlaugh, the author of a piece The Times did interesting in its inclusion of all the participants and about me in 1999. But, it does work well in describing viewpoints. what I empahsize in my writing: aesthetics and ethical My concern then and now is two-fold. First, I am decisions are bound up tightly together. Aesthetic and concerned with the safety and well being, in the widest ethics are both about what we value and what informs sense of that concept, of the animal(s) involved. That our judgements. In “The Ethical Life of the Digital sense includes such characteristics as happiness, agency Aesthetic,” the essay included in The Digital Dialectic, I and stimulation and freedom to leave. Second, what is was making a case for taking the following quesiton communicated by conscripting an animal into a project? seriously: “what is the moral content of the cultural Even if the stated goal of the project is to question our identity we are building with digital media?” I wrote this hierarchal relationship with animals, is the artist essay in 1995. My goal was to counter the sudden rush communicating to their viewer the inevitability of the to digital media of all kinds, in this case web-based media, “use” of animals (a contentious term in the h-animal by artists, educators, computer scientists, digital thread) for any number of human needs or desires by developers and the powerful forces funding this “using” them in the project and placing the animals’ undertaking, including academic, governmental and needs in a subservient position. There are many art coporate. Digital media is often characterized by these projects using live animals at present and I am saddened forces as both deterministic and devoid of embedded at the way many artists are using other animals in ways values. This characterization obscures any possiblilty of that reinforce our anthropocentric views of them and in choice. We accept technolgical invention as inevitable some cases continuing a blatant disregard for their well- and immune to any influence from cultural thought and being by being involved in interference with their lives to action. And of course, this is exactly what established the point of their death. If the artist really wants to hierarchies encourage. challenge these assumptions, I urge them to start there I cannot say specifically if this essay affected and create situations and spaces that do not rely on the perceptions and encouraged new approaches. Some use of captive animals, domestic or wild, in situations that people were very angry with me for writing it, and so I re-inscribe their domination. would have to say it must have had some affect! The same forces characterize newer techologies in the same In the piece you suggest that France Cadet’s way and for the same reasons, I am afraid. work poses questions about “the real possible consequences of science.” Which of Cadet’s In the Genetic Technologies and Animals: Special works do you think best addresses this question Issue of AI & Society you ask “In light of the and why? urgency of the future of the ecosystem’s integrity, of which biotechnology is increasingly playing a I point to France Cadet’s Dog[LAB]01 Dog[LAB]02 in the large role, and the millions of our fellow essay included in this issue. Both pieces, by producing creatures whose lives we are destroying in that
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discouraged.
France Cadet Dog[LAB]01, exhibition view, 7 robotic dogs, podiums, ID cards, 2004 France Cadet
process, it is important to ask, what does art discouraged. I am very encouraged, however, by students contribute to that future?” in my Environmental Ethics and Critical Animal Studies (quote from Genetic Technologies and Animals: courses at Emily Carr University. They bring an Special Issue of AI & Society Vol.20.1, January enormous amount of commitment, creativity and passion 2006) What has art contributed to that future to the development of solutions to these and other over the past two years, since that question first issues concerning the non-human world and that gives arose? me hope.
That essay, “Leonardo’s Choice: the ethics of artists In 2005 you collaborated with Steve Baker on a working with genetic technologies,” was originally written piece title ”‘We Have Always Been Transgen.” in 2004, though published in the special issue I edited on This dialogue concerned the nature of ethical that topic for AI & Society. Since that time I would say responsibility in contemporary art practice, and that on any given day my perception of what has its relation to questions of creativity; the role of changed may differ. I am very heartened to find many writing in shaping the perception of transgenic artists involved with work that contributes quite art and related practices, and the problems that positively to shifting notions of the human role in may be associated with trusting artists to act environmental degradation, species extinction, and with integrity in the uncharted waters of their animal agency. On other days, the growth of enthusiastic engagement with genetic biotechnological research and its hard-wired connections technologies. How did this collaboration originate to global economic investment, despite our miniscule and why? factual knowledge of what unexpected outcomes may occur for animal, plant and human life, makes me
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Eduardo Kac GFP Bunny, 2000, Photography Eduardo Kac
I was asked by the North American editor of the journal Bonne Sherk, Alan Sonfist, Hans Haacke to name a few. AI & Society, Victoria Vesna, to edit a special issue on the subject of biotechnologies after she had read GFP Bunny by Chicago-based artist Eduardo Kac “Leonardo’s Choice: the ethics of artists working with stirred unprecedented controversy. In the words genetic technologies.” My essay referenced Steve’s essay of Steve Baker “Kac believes that 'artists can on Eduardo Kac’s work GFP Bunny. I had read and offer important alternatives to the polarized admired Steve’s The Postmodern Animal, and thought debate' about genetic engineering, putting Steve should be included in this issue. I sent my essay to 'ambiguity and subtlety' in place of polarity”. Steve and he responded with a proposal to engage in a What is your take on ‘Alba’ (actual name given dialogue about these issues since we discovered in our to the rabbit; in English the name translates into initial emails that we were both working on books that Dawn) and how do you think it informs our were concerned with animals and creativity. understanding of transgenic art? (Steve Baker’s I think we both felt that engaging with these quote from the Animal in ContemporaryArt, ideas through a dialogue with someone whose interests http://www.fathom.com/feature/122562/index.ht were so similar, though as we discovered approached ml) differently, would be beneficial to our own writing. I enjoyed our discussions immensely. I am grateful that we Rather than give a one line answer to that question, I will had that opportunity to talk at length and in detail about point to my essay mentioned above and also, reprinted issues about which we both felt so strongly. in my edited book discussed in the next question. In the book, you also will find several other authors’ takes on Which artists in particular have informed Eduardo’s work as well as other artists’ work in this area. your own practice? You are currently putting the finishing touches to Early influences were Goya, Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, ‘Leonardo’s choice: genetic technologies and animals.’ The book takes to task the implications 15
and outcomes of genetic technologies aiming to be sold. Animals have been conscripted into these forge a new art practice involved in creating technologies to further an agenda of controlling the living beings using those technologies. What creation of all life through the manipulation of various prompted you to work on this book? manifestations of code. In today’s biotechnologies, animals have become code. Having edited the special issue of AI & Society in which I used my essay, Leonardo’s Choice the ethics of artists What’s next in Carol Gigliotti’s agenda for 2009? working with genetic technologies as a starting point to which included authors could respond, it became I will be doing two presentations at the Minding Animals apparent that critiques of the impact of biotechnologies conference in Newcastle, Australia this summer. The first were keeping pace with its growth. With this book I have will be part of a double panel on the Global Media Space tried to use the exceptionally strong core of original that Ralph Acampora, Annie Potts, and Carol Freeman authors and essays to add authors from an even wider and I put together. I will also be representing the Institute disciplinary range and interested in focusing on what for Critical Animal Studies in the Animals and Society these technologies mean for the lives of animals, not just Groups Forum. Over the next while, I hope to spend in labs, but outside them as well. My goal was to offer more time concentrating on the book I have been different kinds of readers very well written and working on for a few years, Wildness and Technology: researched essays on the connected threads running Creativity and animal life. through the topic of the development and use of these technologies: political will, ecological devastation, economic justice, and ideas around creation and progress seen through the lens of animal life. The topic of genetic technologies is one of the most pressing challenges to a growing concern about our relationship with the natural world, and it is thrown into high relief in this volume through perspectives, by and large, hoping to refute the inevitability of a biotechnological future and the rationales behind it. The book is unique in that the authors keep animals at the center of these discussions, refusing to dismiss the effects of these technologies on their well being and agency.
In February 2009 you will be giving a paper at the Database Aesthetics PANEL at College Art Association 2009 Conference, Los Angeles. The title: "The Reconfiguration of Animals: Ethical issues in database aesthetics" is particularly intriguing. Could you tell us what the focus of the talk will be?
Briefly: instead of the dematerialization of the body written of so eloquently in much posthumanist discourse, genetic technologies in combination with database technologies are used to redefine biological materiality. Farm animals, already redefined as such by centuries of use in human food and labor, are now approached by the life sciences and medical practices as data warehouses of information. The embodied situated Dr. Carol Gigliotti (http://www.carolgiglotti.net), a writer, educator, and contexts so important in cognitive ethology’s study of artist, is an Associate Professor in Interactive Media and Critical and animals in the field are forgotten in the quest for a drive Cultural Studies at Emily Carr University (ECU) in Vancouver, B.C., Canada where she teaches Environmental Ethics, Animal Studies and Digital to forge a new concept of biological materiality, one that Interactive Media courses. She has been involved in new media since may exist separately from the animal tissue from which it 1989 and has been writing about ethics and technologies for the last came. Obscured by the aesthetics of an elegant material seventeen years. On sabbatical from ECU for the school year 2007-2008, language, a symbolic technique accomplished through the she is now back at ECU this fall teaching "Critical Animal Studies" and "Interactivity" while continuing to work on the book Wildness and combination of DNA and contemporary informatic Technology: creativity and animal life. thought, animal’s intrinsic value as beings with whom we share this planet is reconfigured. Instead that value has Carol Gigliotti was interviewed by Antennae in Winter 2008 Antennae been reshaped into small packets of information ready to
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AR TIFICIAL LIFE AND
TH E LIVES OF THE
NO N-HUMAN
Carol Gigliotti talks animals, A-life and the work of Ken Rinaldo and France Cadet.
Text by Carol Gigliotti
Ken Rinaldo Autopoiesis: Artificial life Installation 2000-2005 Ken Rinaldo
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aptive on an island surrounded by a moat and an of any possible claim to consciousness. But according to electrical fence, a recently arrived chimpanzee Griffin and a number of other scientists and C decides to make a break for it by leaping over philosophers,3 there are many reasons for interest in the the fence. She lands screaming in the moat water. consciousness of animals. These include attempts to Thrashing about wildly and not able to swim, she attracts locate the place of humans in nature by contrast and in the attention of one of her human keepers and another comparison with those beings most similar to us. An captive chimp. The second chimp risks her life by hurtling equally valid inducement to making a commitment to the herself over the fence and only barely landing on the study of animal consciousness is the reassessment of moat’s edge, where she reaches out to grab the scientific limits and methodologies it might entail. drowning chimp with her long arms. The most profound and, I would argue, the most Eight years later, the rescuing second chimp, still pivotal reason for the study of animal consciousness is captive, becomes very interested in one of her keepers’ the ethical and moral significance these finding may have new pregnancy. Since she can use American Sign on beings who much of the world’s human population Language (ASL), she often asks about the keeper’s baby perceives and uses only as food or as other resource by signing. When the keeper miscarries and is gone for a “objects.” While the overall population of certain few days, the chimp conveys her unhappiness about the animals, such as cattle or mice, grows in relation to their keeper’s absence by physically distancing herself from the use as food or as research tools, the numbers of many keeper. The keeper, knowing the chimp herself has lost other species continue to dwindle. two babies, decides to tell the chimp what has happened. Extinction rates based on known extinctions of birds, MY BABY DIED, Kat signed to her. Washoe looked down to mammals and amphibians over the past 100 years indicate the ground. Then she looked into Kat’s eyes and signed CRY, that current extinction rates are 50 to 500 times higher touching her cheek just below her eye. That single word, than extinction rates in the fossil record.4 CRY, Kat later said, told her more about Washoe than all of her longer, more grammatically perfect sentences.1 Citing habitat destruction as the dominant threat to mammals, birds and amphibians, the 2004 Red List of Washoe’s capacity for compassion – a form of empathy Threatened Species described over-exploitation as a – in these examples from psychologist Roger Fouts’s major threat for mammals, birds and both fresh water book Next of Kin is significant for the following discussion and marine species. In fact, since that 2004 Red List of about the development and practice of artificial life Threatened Species summary, the 2008 Red List sciences and what impact those sciences might have on chronicled a quarter of the planet's 5,487 known the lives of non-human animals. The idea that animals are mammals at risk, though researchers were unable to able to be empathic, and even act as what can only be account for 836 additional mammals due to a lack of described as compassionately, is a fast emerging area of data. "In reality, the number of threatened mammals research. Empathy is the most recent in a long line of could be as high as 36 percent," said IUCN scientist Jan qualities heretofore used as boundary markers in the Schipper, lead author of the mammal survey.5 human/non-human divide. In the examples above, both Concurrently, equally detrimental outcomes for language and empathy, two of the last remaining animals, both wild and domestic, are arising from the qualitative bulwarks protecting the anthropocentric shared thinking, goals and practices of the sciences (and worldview, appear not to just be leaking but bursting connected commercial industries) of biotechnologies, apart. As part of what has come to be known as the nanotechnologies, a-life and robotics. Researchers in “cognitive revolution” of the last half of the twentieth these fields participate, with various levels of century, comparative psychologists and cognitive commitment, in mindsets that prioritize the value of ethologists have accumulated vast amounts of new innovation for human progress through technological and knowledge (at least new to science) on the cognitive scientific means. The collective goals of these newer capacities of non-human beings, including such disparate technologies are based on a desire to reconfigure, creatures as bees and earthworms, dolphins, whales and redesign, and recreate the world from the way it has apes. Despite this work, the topic of consciousness in evolved over time into something that is assumed could non-human beings remains controversial and relatively be better. Precedents of this thinking over the last under-researched in the sciences, though it might be centuries’ accelerated rate of technological and scientific argued this is changing, and, aside from a few outstanding innovation have resulted in what we must surely admit is cases, in the humanities and the arts. Reasons for this gap the pitiful state of the planet’s environmental health, our in the sciences range from the difficulties encountered in own and other animals’ as well. One of the most finding clear and definite answers to the “problem” of pressing questions we have to ask ourselves at this point consciousness in humans and non-humans, to the more is: if we allow these mindsets to continue to guide our insidious problem of mentaphobia, a term coined by scientific and technological thought and practice, do we Donald Griffin, a pioneer in the field of cognitive truly understand what will be lost in the process? ethology.2 Griffin defines mentaphobia as the practice of There are many paths to answering that berating non-human animals and thereby depriving them question, but I would like to follow one that involves the 18
France Cadet GFP Puppy from Dog[LAB]01, 2004 France Cadet
quality discussed at the beginning of this essay, empathy. interdisciplinary field known as a-life has been developing Empathy – “the focused imaginative experience of the over the last twenty years or so. Artificial life, or a-life, is other”6 – is a prerequisite for altruistic behavior in both “concerned with both the creation and study of artificial humans and animals, and, in both, the precursor for systems that mimic or manifest the properties of living simple to complex levels of morality.7 Empathy, based as systems.”9 Distinguishing itself from artificial intelligence it is on embodied experience is also an essential element (AI) in both methodology and goals, proponents of a-life of aesthetic engagement. A look at the a-life and robotic rely on a “bottom-up” approach rather than on the “top- works of new media artists Kenneth Rinaldo and France down” approach of AI. Instead of attempting to create Cadet will allow us a more embodied and imaginative centralized computer programs that might think, a-life experience of the impact of a-life sciences on the lives methodologies rely on developing computational and futures of non-human animals, and perhaps, a more behavioural parts operating in parallel, and from which informed and empathic response to the question above. unspecified behaviour might arise. These methodologies Together with Cadet’s work, the a-life and rely on a synthetic approach in which, rather than robotic works of Kenneth Rinaldo8 provide a productive studying biological phenomena by taking apart living channel for a wider critique of contemporary scientific organisms to see how they work, one attempts to put and artistic a-life practice and the chance to clarify several together systems that behave like living organisms. key ideas crucial to any discussion of a-life and non- The emergence of autonomous life is the primary human animals. Given the ethical and moral difficulties it goal of many scientists and artists working with these a- brings up, Rinaldo’s work offers particularly helpful life methodologies. Artists who are pioneers in this field, examples of the paradoxical qualities a quest for artificial such as Simon Penny, a professor of arts and engineering life exhibits while the devastation of actual non-human at University of California Irvine10 and Nell Tenhaaf, a life accelerates. Concurrently in science and in art, the Professor of Fine Arts at York University,11 are early
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exceptions, as they employ the metaphorical realm of art Penny, the biological aspects of cell dynamics and to critique technology and science. As Mitchell Whitelaw evolution in which the informational and the material are says, however, Rinaldo shares with a number of other a- enmeshed are avoided or ignored in a-life. life artists “...aspirations for emergent autonomous Penny connects these ideas driving a-life, which sculpture, eagerly anticipating ‘the day when my artwork he reminds us are from Enlightenment mind/body greets me good morning when it has not been dualism roots, with the ideology of industrial capitalism. programmed to do so.’”12 A central precept of the The human relationship with the non-human world is synthetic method is the transferability of “essential one in which biodiversity is harnessed into the industrial properties” of life. Many a-life researchers insist this machine. And, in a prescient comment foreshadowing method is the only one available for understanding engineers using these synthetic methods in current properties of life that are merely “incidental to life in genetic experiments,17 he adds, “in the post-industrial principle, but which happen to be universal to life on [world], a-lifers are harnessing the mechanism of Earth due solely to a combination of local historical biodiversity itself.”18 accidents and common genetic descent.”13 This Rinaldo’s work differs from much a-life art in his insistence, articulated in this quote from Chris Langton, mixing of this desire for a role in the creation of an one of the pioneers of a-life research, rather than being environment in which autonomous behaviour might predicated on a proven scientific principle itself, rests on emerge with a concern for “sustaining a kind of evolved what I have previously described as a desire; the desire wisdom, which arises out of our symbiotic relations with for life-as-it-could-be. Langton goes on to say: all other living flora and fauna that surround, envelop and exist within us.”19 By extending the horizons of empirical research in These differences can be perceived most clearly biology beyond the territory currently circumscribed by life-as- in his use of organic materials and non-human beings in we-know-it, the study of Artificial Life gives us access to the several works, particularly Autopoesis (2000), an artificial domain of life-as-it-could-be, and it is within this vastly larger life work, and Augmented Fish Reality (2003), a robotic domain that we must ground general theories of biology work, and in his theoretical writings about those works. and in which we will discover practical and useful Influenced by Franciso Varella and Humberto applications of biology in our engineering endeavors.14 Mantura’s ideas concerning the ability of living systems “to structurally couple with their environments while Life-as-it-could-be, and the creation of maintaining self-referential structure,”20 Rinaldo’s work is environments in which life-as-it-could-be might emerge, also informed by Lynn Margulis’ theories of are the driving forces behind much a-life research both in symbiogenesis.21 In contrast to Darwin’s theory of the sciences and in the arts. And if scientists also provide evolution, which is based on mutations and genetic drift ostensibly practical reasons for their research, such as and, to some degree, competition as the driving force of assisting our “engineering endeavours,” many artists evolution, symbiogenesis places the merging of working with a-life reveal no such practical rationales. independent organisms to form composites, from the Rinaldo’s works offers evocative models of the cellular to the species level, in a central role. It prioritizes ongoing contemporary struggle with the yearning for cooperation, interaction, and mutual dependence something better, something else, something new. It is between living organisms. Concerning Autopoesis, Rinaldo this yearning for something new that is central to the says: quest for a-life through the technology humans have In Autopoiesis, the human environment affects the created. While Rinaldo shares this quest, he values taking behaviour of the robotic artworks, which in turn affects the into consideration the non-human world and its inherent behaviour of the viewer. This allows a conversation of one reliance on life-as-it-is. Whitelaw goes on to discuss reacting to, responding to and influencing the other in the Rinaldo’s interest creation of a unique robot-human evolution.22
...in symbiotic (or at least benign) interactions Rinaldo’s commitment to a more interactive – even between technological and living systems. In fact, this embodied – approach to his robotic and artificial life interaction or intersection outweighs emergent autonomy to works is also influenced by computer scientist and become the central theme in Rinaldo’s work.15 roboticist Rodney Brooks, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and also the This concern is in sharp contrast with the views of a-life chairman of iRobot Corp, the makers of robotic vacuum artists and researchers, whose works are more in line cleaners. Brooks, who is heavily influenced by several with reductive and rational notions of the separation of early ethologists,23 has argued that intelligent systems the “essential properties” of life from their material need to be embodied, not just simulated, and also need corporeality, as Langton describes above. Critiquing this to be situated in the real world, thereby using the actual separation, Penny16 describes how applying environment with which the intelligent system needs to computational techniques to organic life gives rise to interact to represent itself to itself through it. wrong assumptions about the similarities between these Tautologies of influence and representation techniques and the deep structures of biological life. For aside, Rinaldo has implemented these influences in works
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he hopes will create “interactive spaces for animals and competition and violence. And while that may stand humans to connect.”24 Citing a recent report on the metaphorically as a motive within the framework of a-life increasing understanding of just how socially intelligent art practice, the reality of this fusion in the current fish are, Rinaldo says his work Augmented Fish Reality natural world is something quite different. My main (2004) “...seeks to ask these questions about fish interest here is to highlight the paradoxes of Rinaldo’s intelligence by turning the control of a series of robots work as part of the zeitgeist of much current over to Siamese fighting fish.”25 Male Siamese fighting fish technological innovation. My argument is both with the would normally fight to the death if they were placed in assumed inevitability driving this vision of a a tank together. In this work, both males and females are technologically mediated future and with the assumption placed individually into five bowls. By swimming towards that the non-human world, or the planet as a whole, will four active infrared sensors installed around each bowl, benefit from this coercion. the fish are able to turn and move the bowls forward A look at another artist’s robotic work offers a and backwards. The installation is also layered with very different picture. New media artist France Cadet’s projected images of the fish enlarged from micro video robotic art practice, in an ironically embodied and cameras inside the tanks; in this way, the work plays with imaginative way, faces head on the ethical questions and issues of scale and corresponding issues of control and possible consequences of a technologically driven future. power. The human interaction is initiated when viewers It makes tangible the impact of such a vision on the non- merely enter the space. As Rinaldo says, human world. Cadet,30 a first place winner of the 2003 LIFE award,31 (Rinaldo won for Autopoesis in 2000) poses The work also becomes a kind of meta questions about “the real possible consequences of commentary on control in that the fish are in control of their science” in work that uses her extensive knowledge of robots and humans sometimes find this frustrating, as they robotic practice. Her installation Dog[Lab]1.0 (2004) seem to want to control the robots.26 consists of seven hacked and reprogrammed commercially available robotic dogs. Each dog It is in this sensitivity to the place of the non-human in references actual scientific and artistic biotechnological the technologically mediated world that Rinaldo’s work experiments, by this time known for their iconic and excels. It is here, too, that the troubling paradoxes of a infamous use of living animals or animal tissue. Cadet’s connected quest for artificial life bubble up to the decision to use dog robots is important not only because surface. Aside from the most obvious of questions, such it is the animal chosen by commercial robotic companies as why enclose the fish in tanks of any kind given their upon which to model the first toy robots, but also stated consciousness, other more complex questions because dogs are the animal humans have allowed arise. This work and Autopoesis address issues related to themselves most to empathise with. While a newer our respect and awe for the non-human world and our version of this piece, Dog[Lab]2.0, expands on the ideas totally symbiotic relationship with it; however, they insist within this piece by focusing on the Dolly Dog -a cloned on the mediation of that relationship through technology. dog/ cow/sheep who exhibits BSE symptoms - the Why is that? Rinaldo answers: “[because] there seems to original piece incorporates Dolly and six other examples be an inevitable and overall natural evolution and human of what we are doing to animals in the name of progress. coercion toward intelligent systems, both biological and Also included are: a nude dog/mouse/pig named technological.”27 Xenodog, Eduardo’s Kac’s as of yet unmade GFP Puppy, Many scientists and artists see this process as and a nude pig/human/dog combination by Tissue inescapable and are committed to their involvement in Culture and Art (TCA) Projects’ Third Ear made for the its development. Are they, like the fish in Rinaldo’s piece, artist Stelarc, and TCA’s Flying Pig, called, appropriately, under the impression they are in charge of their own Flying Pig. Each robotic dog is installed on a small circle of agency by guiding this development while in actuality artificial grass; the dogs bleat, moo, oink, meow and bark, they are part of a larger and perhaps unavoidable their behaviour emerging from their reality as evolution in which human technology will take control? technologically mediated objects in a human world. A The latter scenario, which in reality is not far-off from my Copycat dog, ostensibly the perfect pet, grooms itself like tongue-in cheek synopsis here, exists in the realm of a cat but still dreams like a dog, its paws twitching as it serious theory in a number of forms, such as the writing sleeps. The GFP Puppy glows green with red eyes, and it of Hans Morovec28 and Ray Kuzweil.29 Returning to the clumsily wags its body back and forth while barking compassion of Washoe, we might ask: for what reason “bow-wow” in a bass computer voice, and then howls has this aspect of consciousness emerged? Is compassion with loneliness when no one approaches. The cloned merely a small part of multiple agencies all working dog/cow named Dolly careens over on its side, legs symbiotically for the purpose of understanding and convulsing from BSE. In the burlesque of the hacked welcoming our inevitable technologically mediated chimeras’ awkwardness, their constrained movements “natures?” Have we, instead, missed the central point and mechanical limits, there is a sadness so deep it has about the evolution of empathy and compassion? no voice. It can only make the sign for CRY. Rinaldo sees the fusion between biological and technological systems as a positive move away from
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Notes form. “And that's what synthetic biology is about: specifying every bit 1 Roger Fouts, Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me of DNA that goes into an organism to determine its form and function About Who We Are (New York: William Morrow & Co, 1997), 291. in a controlled, predictable way, like etching a microprocessor or building a bridge. The goal, as Endy puts it, is nothing less than to 2 Gail Vines, "Something Like Us: An Interview with Donald Griffin," ‘reimplement life in a manner of our choosing.’” New Scientist (June 30, 2001), 48. 18 Penny, http://www.ace.uci.edu/penny/texts/darwinmachine.html 3 See especially for the purposes of this essay Donald Griffin, Animal Minds (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992); Colin Allen, 19 Kenneth Rinaldo, personal communication with the author, January Marc Bekoff and Gordon M. Burghardt, eds., The Cognitive Animal: 17, 2005. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2002); Carey Wolfe, 20 Kenneth Rinaldo, "[-Empyre] Fwd from Ken Rinaldo - Interactivity," Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and (Mitchell Whitelaw, November, 2004). Available at Posthumanist Theory (Chicago and London: The University of http://www.subtle.net/empyre/. Chicago Press, 2003); Tom Regan, Defending Animal Rights (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001); Jacques Derrida, "The 21 Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. (New Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow)," Critical Inquiry 28.2 York: Basic Books, 1998). (2002). 22 Rinaldo, "[-Empyre] Fwd from Ken Rinaldo - Interactivity," available 4 The World Conservation Union, Red List of Threatened Species – from https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/mailman/htdig/empyre/2004- A Global Species Assessment: Executive Summary [html] (IUCN, November/msg00132.html. 2004 [cited Nov. 6, 2004]), available from http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/red_list_2004/GSAexecsumm_EN.ht 23 Charles Taylor, "From Cognition in Animals to Cognition in m. Superorganisms," in The Cognitive Animal,159.
5 Jan Schipper, et al. “The Status of the World's Land and Marine 24 Kenneth Rinaldo, personal communication with the author, January Mammals: Diversity, Threat, and Knowledge.” Science (10 October 17, 2005. 2008): 322 (5899): 225 – 230. 25 Ibid. 6 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy of the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. (New York: 26 Ibid. Basic Books, 1999), 566. 27 Ibid. 7 See Stephanie D. Preston and Frans B. M. de Waal. “The Communication of emotions and the possibility of empathy in 28 See Hans Moravec, “The Universal Robot.” In Timothy Druckrey, animals.” In Stephen Post et al. (eds.) Altruism and Altruistic Love: ed., Ars Electronica: Facing the Future, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue, (New York: Oxford Press, 1999), 116-123. University Press, 2002). See also, Stephanie D. Preston, and Frans B. M. de Waal. (2002) “Empathy: Its Ultimate and Proximate Bases.” 29 See Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2002) 25: 1-72. Exceed Human Intelligence. (New York: Viking, 1999).
8 See Kenneth Rinaldo, Emergent Systems (2005), available from 30 France Cadet, Cyberdoll (2005); available from http://accad.osu.edu/~rinaldo/. http://cyberdoll.free.fr/cyberdoll/index_a.html. Videos of Dog[LAB]1.0 may be seen at this site as well as other more recent works by Cadet. 9 Mitchell Whitelaw, Metacreations: Art and Artificial Life (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004), 2. 31 Art and Artificial Life International Competition (Telefonica Foundation); available from 10 See Simon Penny’s bio at http://ace.uci.edu/penny/about/index.html. http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/arteytecnologia/certamen_vida/in dex.htm. 11 See Nell Tenhaaf’s bio at http://www.yorku.ca/finearts/faculty/profs/tenhaaf/tenhaaf.htm.
12 Whitelaw, 109-110. The internal quote from Rinaldo is cited from Kenneth Rinaldo, “Technology Recapitulates Phylogeny: Artificial Life Art,” Leonardo 31.5 (1998): 375.
13 Chris G. Langton, What Is Artificial Life? (1995), available from http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/alife/. This is an online version of a text from one of the major pioneers in the field.
14 Ibid.
15 Whitelaw, 110.
16 Simon Penny, “The Darwin Machine: Artificial Life and Interactive Art,” New Formations 29 (1996): ‘Artificial Life and the Lives of the Non-Humans’ is an adapted and http://ace.uci.edu/penny/texts/darwinmachine.html. revised version of ‘KENNETH RINALDO AND FRANCE CADET- Artificial Life and the Lives of the Non-Human’ originally published in 17 Oliver Morton, "Life Reinvented," Wired (January 2005), available Parachute n. 119, Human and AI 07/08/09 2005, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/mit.html. The work http://cyberdoll.free.fr/cyberdoll/parachute_e.htm and is here at MIT described in this article uses the methods of a-life in biological reproduced with permission of the author and the original publisher.
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FRANCE CADET:
DOG[LAB]01
France Cadet, is a French Artist whose work raises questions about various aspects in science debates: danger of possible accidents, observation of animal and human behaviour, artificialisation of life, side effects of cloning... Text by France Cadet; Interview by Sonja Britz
France Cadet Dog[LAB]01, exhibition view, 7 robotic dogs, podiums, ID cards,23 2004 France Cadet
lending in society, robots are now becoming more Animal and Human and Non-Human. I try to grant and more life-like. They are claiming to be acting them back for a moment the right to life, to free B as moral agents and have now the ability and expression and to judgment. desire to experiment social activities and pleasures. In this installation we can also observe that the Amongst her more popular works, “Hunting Trophies” fact that these animals are robots raises other issues. seem to have capture people’s imagination in a rather Even though here they are used as a medium to express complex way. questionings about animals rights, and as a kind of The project involves a collection of eleven representation, they are still robots and thus bring new hunting trophies hung on the wall. These are similar to interrogations about their quality, their function and their those hunters proudly exhibit in their living room, but in integration into society. this case, the original taxidermied animal has been Therefore we could ask ourselves about the replaced by a robotic rendition of it. Each robot has its nature of these species of robots. How many are there? own internal program which reacts with its outside Any rare species? Any facing extinction? How could they environment thanks to its infrared sensor placed on its be classified? Are they the testimony of a future world chest. Thus they can detect the presence and where androids could be facing extinction? Or else, have movements of one or more persons. When a viewer they supplanted real animals such as in Philip K. Dick‘s looks at the collection from afar, the trophies look like famous vision? Might we soon need a Susan Calvin, the still objects attached to the wall. Their eyes are closed famous robopsychologist from Isaac Asimov’s novels? Just (turned off), their heads held high are still. But when a let me remind you AIBO clinic (Sony’s robot dog) viewer approaches, they start to react. They turn their already exists! Like Frédéric Kaplan is doing it in his book: heads in the direction of the viewer, their eyes light up, "Machines apprivoisées" (tamed machines), we could also their mouths open up as they start growling. When a ask ourselves about the place that these strange person walks fast next to the trophies, a chain reaction creatures could occupy one day in our society. But also... will be triggered. can we kill robots? And if so, can we do it with more It is always surprising to see the unequal impunity than animals? Which ones already have or will consideration given to animals and humans. In different have more value? More respect? More rights? cultures, the same animal can be either a pet, sacred, or appreciated only for its flesh depending on the In her Cyborg manifesto Donna Haraway defines geographical location. Nobody would want to eat their cyborgs as creatures simultaneously animal and pet in Western society, however the large majority don’t machine: both active in the world of social reality seem to see any problem in breeding animals for food or and fiction. To what extent do your species of clothes, in hunting or doing experiments on them to animal-robots question conventional boundaries create unnecessary, yet safe products. between animal, human and machine? The idea of the animals as automata has been overtaken for a long time now by the idea of feeling pain I first started to use robotic dogs in my work because in animals. Peter Singer argues that because animals have they allowed me to embody questions concerning animal the ability to experience pain and suffering, they should rights, and the complex relationship between humans be afforded the same moral considerations as any other and animals which is central to my work. These questions sentient being. It could be claimed that his contribution have evolved over time. At the beginning I was more to animals liberation is substantial even if I don’t focused on the boundaries between human and animal, subscribe to its extreme utilitarian vision, I agree with the simply using the robots as a medium, then I became statement that “the use of animals in medical research interested in using them for their intrinsic robotic should be regulated in accordance with the principle of qualities, hence questioning the relationships between utility” just like I condemn animal husbandry and intensive humans (or animal) and machines. breeding. Nowadays, after asking ourselves if animals are In Dog[LAB]01, my first installation using I-Cybies, suffering, we ask ourselves if animals think, and if they can the seven transgenic and chimerical little robotic dogs be the subject of moral concern, which thus is blurring were used to make a critical social statement about the the boundaries between human and animal. Maybe excess and dangers of cloning, eugenics and other should we wonder if humans have tamed animals or if experiments using animals. It also dealt with animals have adapted themselves to humans? (i.e. controversies concerning artists using bio-art as an art Dominque Lestel’s theory in “l’animal singulier”). We can form. say that my concerns are similar to those which motivate The modifications of these improbable creatures bio-Art or transgenic-Art in general, with the difference were based on very real research and experiments done that I do it in a metaphorical way with my robots, I don’t on real animals and demonstrate their possible use genetic engineering or living beings as a medium for consequences. Despite the fact that these animal-robots artistic expression like SymbioticA, Eduardo Kac, Stelarc, are fictitious they still relay a social reality. The robots Marta de Menezes, Art Orienté Objet … but rather have the general morphology of a dog (I wanted them to questionings on the relation between Human and look like pets) but some have bovine 24
France Cadet Dolly from Dog[LAB]01, 2004 France Cadet
coats and horns (mad cow disease?), or pork skin The fact that these animals are robots but that they (xenotransplantation? Unless it’s a cross with the famous suffer from diseases, or die (in Dog[LAB]02, where a nude mouse?). Barking is transformed into quavering pack of cloned robots like Dolly - the one suffering from bleats (ESB? Dolly’s clone?), or meowing (research for BSE and premature aging - are dying in unison), the perfect pet combining cat and dog?). Some have challenges the utopian dreams of transhumanists in which clear jellyfish style bodies, others phosphorescent fur like robotic technology was seen as a means of overcoming "GFP Bunny" (Eduardo Kac’s famous rabbit which used our mortality. Green Fluorescent Protein). Another has human ears The installation “Hunting Trophies” directly raises growing out of its back (Stelarc third ear? TC&A Pig questions about animals rights, but it also introduces new wings project?…) even more surprising is the model with interrogations about domestic robots and robots in two heads! general, their status, their function, and their integration With these animal-robots I tried to denounce into society. harmful and excessive use animal experiments, through The animals from “Do robotic cats dream of ironical caricaturization based on very real facts (even electric fish?” and “Gaude Mihi” are a much more though I united different and probably incompatible accurate testimony of the breaking down of boundaries transformations in the same robot). I mostly focused on between animal, human and machine. Blending into experiments which had had big media coverage so that society, robots are now becoming more and more life- people could get the reference, even though they were like; they now claim to be acting as moral agents! They watching tiny transformed robotic toys. seem to be developing the ability and desire to These animal-robots could be here considered as experiment with social activities and pleasures. Thus my a sort of burlesque illustration, an ironic metaphor, an robotic cat might have the desire to entertain itself by "entertaining" warning against these practices.
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watching a pet program on TV, or the rocking robot can be assured and even repeated. Do you “Gaude Mihi” (literally rejoice in myself) which rocks when regard your robotic animals as a new and unique its owner approaches, might simply be seeking to species of wildlife metaphors? If so, what sort of generate its own amusement, therefore removing the spaces do you think they can occupy? participation of its owner thus redefining the role of the toy (and the player). These last two robots tend to We first tried to compare the animal with a machine. create more of a "real" situation and less a metaphor. Then Descartes’ idea of “Animal-Machine” was ousted by the idea of a pain-feeling animal (Peter Singer), then In your recent work entitled Hunting Trophies by the idea that an animal could be the subject of moral eleven robotic animal heads have been mounted concern, thus blurring the boundaries between human onto a wall as in traditional trophy displays. and animal. Simultaneously machines became more and What is the significance behind the number more life-like and are considered by certain people eleven? today, to be capable of acting as moral agents too. We observe that these notions are merging and that we are There is no particular signification behind the number moving towards Donna Haraway’s model of modern eleven. I just wanted to build a dozen or so trophies, but science in which the distinctions between natural and I needed an odd number in order to hang them onto the artificial are completely restructured and the boundaries wall in two staggered lines, with the deer-like species, between nature and culture, animal or human and which are more proud, above arrogantly gazing down at machine have become permeable. you and the cat-like species which are more aggressive, The animals from “Hunting Trophies” are a below, looking you straight in the eye. possible metaphor of these new life forms. They assemble recognizable characteristics from existing What qualities do you think animation versus species, mainly felines (lion, tiger, leopard, lynx) and static display lends to your work? cervidae (deer, moose, antelope, impala) which are found in traditional hunting trophies. On the other hand The “Hunting Trophies” installation has a more they have generic characteristics, a shiny skin and the traditional and sculptural aspect than my previous same size as if they all belonged to the same species. installations involving moving robots. For someone who They seem to be normalized, their biodiversity and discovers the installation, there’s nothing that allows taxonomic ranks & boundaries erased occulting notions them to predict that these sculptures have the ability to of species, genus, family, order, class… and life. The move and react. These cut-in-half robots seem standardization of our future natural world implies new irremediably still. It’s only when you approach to observe life forms and more or less a unique species of wildlife. the details of each animal that they come to life. But my robots also embody the fact that most of the Compared to a traditional static installation, the effect of machines that we are creating refer to a natural model, surprise is fundamental and an inherent robotic feature, or should I say to our vision and interpretation of nature, and compared to other, previous installations, this effect and even more to our desire of what nature should be. is greater than when people look at a single isolated Even with the latest generations of self-learning and autonomous robot which is already in motion when they adaptive machines, we observe that the result is generally approach. Even thought these trophies are hung onto a mimic of natural pre-existing behaviour. In the field of the wall and cannot jump at us, the fact that they are robotics, the use of animal-like forms might be an placed at eye level exaggerates their aggressive obvious reason. Particular embodiments, considered as appearance. They stare at us menacingly whereas the experimental variables (i.e. Kaplan & Oudeyer), shape the other animal-robots are placed low, below the spectator, robot’s behaviour and its longer-term developmental and tend to seem to be suffering or subordinate. They patterns (i.e. legged robots locomotion, Aibo look more cute and not as dangerous and as a result the experiments, COG from Rodney Brooks.). Even the audience's reaction is different, people have more algorithms behind the concept of “artificial curiosity” in compassion for these poor animals, they probably feel robotics - a sort of abstract motivation based on a form superior, a protector, whereas they tend to feel of curiosity where the robots search for situations in uncomfortable and possibly disturbed by a wall hung which they experience some sort of progress - are an with trophies which stare back at you. artificial reproduction of a natural behaviour. I feel that it is impossible for us to escape from Your hunting trophies seem to ironically defy this anthropomorphic vision, which is why my animals Descartes’ notion of animal as machine unable to refer to existing, emblematic species & tradition. experience pain; they protest even in death to However, I assume and I hope that in the future the injustices suffered by their killing. Akira things won’t be so caricatural. We have reached the Mizuta Lippit promotes the idea of a third form posthuman step and it is also possible to consider, like of life – a technological life or a non-organic life Bostrom, that the human species in its current in which the continued existence of the animal
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France Cadet “Robotic dog skeleton anatomy” drawings made up of dots, 70x100cm, 2008 France Cadet
form does not represent the end of our development, Steve Baker’s notion of the botched taxidermied but rather its beginning… animal so central to the conception of the Postmodern animal. Instead they elicit Do your animals have gender specific traits or associations with toys, cartoons and cinematic are they beyond gender in the post-human animations – forever perfect and desirable. To meaning of the word? what extent do the trophies share characteristics with the original meaning of the word ‘trophy’? With contraception and in vitro fertilization, the female body has been freed from the biological destiny of Most of my artworks tackle serious problems but in an procreation. Genetic engineering and cloning are now ironic and ludicrous way: funny toys, pleasant games, reinforcing this dichotomy between human sex and charming pets, cute machines, sweet robots… I usually procreation, between gender and its cultural and social seek to build easy recognizable objects or machines and role. The physical bounds of gender stretch the limits of use familiar subject matters in order to rapidly engage an Mother Nature. Still referring to Donna Haraway’s vision exchange with the audience. of cyborg, in this post-human world, biological or natural These robots provide me once again with the gender no longer determines the cultural and social roles scope for a new critical social comment about animal of a person. Although my robots have characteristics rights, in this case hunting. They are here considered as a referring to the natural world, they don’t have specific sort of burlesque illustration, an ironic allegory. Parody. gender traits so yes, I guess you could say they have I am conscious that these shiny robots refer more gone beyond gender. to toys and puppets than to genuine hunting trophies and that they are far away from the idea of botched Their shiny, pristine finish strongly contrasts with taxidermy that Steve Baker describes in his book “The Postmodern
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France Cadet “Hunting Trophies” (bobcat, impala, leopard, deer) robots, wooden panels, 2008 France Cadet
Animal” but I am precisely interested in this paradoxical traditional hunting trophies. These trophies can be seen and self-contradictory use of robots – something new as a memento of those endangered animals and those symbolizing cutting edge interactive technology - used species which have vanished, but also as a token of here for the representation of hunting trophies; human victory over technology, a symbolic robotics something old and traditional symbolizing death. achievement. I intentionally worked with the design of cute Japanese-looking robots also because this installation In your work Gaude Mihi the rocking robot raises questions about domesticity and robots in general, conjures up childhood associations of imaginative about their quality, their function and their integration play and fantasy inviting participation. However, into society. the robot is not a compliant participant in the One might ask: Are they different robot’s species? game having a life of its own. Are you in some How many? Are there rare species? Facing extinction? way inviting the viewer to relive an imaginary How are they classified? Are they the testimony of a childhood in which the strict boundaries between future world where androids would be facing extinction? human and animal are less defined or are you Like Frédéric Kaplan in his book: "Machines apprivoisées" acknowledging agency from the side of the (tamed machines), we might also ask ourselves about the animal? place that these strange creatures could have one day in our society. But also… Can we kill robots? With more This little robot which rocks by itself when its owner impunity than animals? Which ones have and will have approaches, might just be seeking to generate its own more value? More respect? More rights? And maybe just.. amusement, therefore removing human participation and how can we kill a machine? redefining the roles of the toy and the player. The action All these interrogations about robots are similar of this toy is not caused by the physical intervention of its to the ones we could pose about animals while watching owner but uniquely by their presence. The notion of
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France Cadet Copycat & Schizodog from Dog[LAB]01, 2004 France Cadet
generated pleasure is not directed at the owner, thus don’t subscribe to his extreme utilitarian vision. However creating a possibly frustrating situation of exclusion. I agree with the fact that the use of animals in medical Machines first served us, then they provided us with research should be regulated in accordance with the entertainment and pleasure, and now they seek to principle of utility and I condemn animal husbandry and "rejoice in themselves". It also relates to those virtual intensive breeding. It is not because animal experiments games which are more and more ubiquitous. We now in medicine are more legitimate that we can treat animals live in a disembodied world of simulation where artificial anyway we wish even if, according to Cohen, the communication is omnipresent, where artificial sex and happiness of the beneficiaries of the medical research far reproduction have replaced natural procreation and outweighs the pain of the subject. Hunting cannot escape relationships. I ironically named this toy “Gaude Mihi” our responsibility and although stripped of any principle from the Latin expression which literally means rejoice in of efficiency or profit, we cannot legitimize it by any myself (entertain me, give me pleasure) and from which principle of utility. I would dispute the necessity of the French term godemiché (dildo) is supposedly derived. inflicting pain or other forms of cruelty on animals and I do question the right of human power over life or death Do you find there is a conflict between your of animals. I don’t however subscribe to a utilitarian or interest in robots as potential independent antivivisection movement, I feel rather closer to a less agents and your views on animal rights? radical group such as the "reformist animal welfare movement”. Firstly let me give my position about animals rights. I As to robots, even if they could be considered don’t have a Manichean, or what I consider as an as potential independent agents, they are not yet extremist vision concerning animal rights or their use for generally regarded as pain-feeling machines and moral scientific experimentation. agents. I refer to real pain and the ability to have moral Peter Singer argues that because animals have considerations, and not to an artificial reproduction of a the ability to experience pain and suffering, they should living beings’ sensitivity. Even if it’s a subject I evoke in my be afforded the same moral considerations as any other robot installations it is still fiction, a futuristic projection. sentient being. We can say he liberated animals, but I These themes are expressed metaphorically and treated
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France Cadet “Gaude Mihi” self-rocking robotic dog, 2008 France Cadet
with irony. As long as machines fail the Turing test, I If I hacked them and spent a long time writing programs I don’t feel that we need to give them any "rights"… could provide them autonomous learning and artificial ultimately, killing a robot is not considered as a crime. An intelligence capabilities like Aibo (of course there would ancestral fear of machines is the lack of control over our be a limitation due to the less numerous and powerful own artificial creations. Whether Asimov’s three laws of sensors on I-Cybie in comparison to Aibo camera robotics or the recent “code of ethics” for machines tracking, voice recognition, encoders feedback.). But published by an international team of scientists and indeed this is not the point. In Dog[LAB]01 for example, academics, it is more about a consideration of our own I did not seek to build robots with artificial intelligence safety than a moral position concerning machine rights. and interactive capabilities because I did not want the All things considered I don’t see any conflict audience to focus on the interaction with these robots, between my interest in robots as potential independent but rather on the specific behaviour of each species, on agents and my views on animal rights. the narrative produced by their program and behaviour. Despite the fact that my modified robots still look like What are the reasons for your choice of I-Cybie plastic toys, people are caught up in emotional reactions robots as opposed to other technologies on the and anthropomorphic attributions. They are convinced market, taking into account that they are not that these robots are responding to them, yet they are capable of autonomous learning and have a just executing a routine and have pre-programmed limited amount of artificial intelligence? behaviour. This audience feedback is precisely a part of the artwork and something I am looking for in the As I intended to build multi-robot installations, the viewers response. The interactive or technologic original reason of my choice of using I-Cybie robots was capabilities of my robots must not supplant their poetic the price. It is ten times less expensive than Aibo reality. (2500/3000$), Sony’s robot dog which is the most evolved and accessible robot dog available on the Your animal heads in Trophies and Gaude Mihi market. Aibo is a genuine adaptive and learning robot are differentiated through species-specific that comes with an easy-to-use programming software patterns and morphological modifications but whereas the ones I use are more similar to toys that otherwise they seem generic. Do you regard these haven’t been designed to be reprogrammed. This implies heads as part of a pack or as individuals? that I have to operate on them and perform hardware and software modifications, this has become perhaps, the In Dog[LAB]01 all robot animals have at least 50% of most important aspect of the creative process. dog in their genetic make up and that's why they all still
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look like - more or less - a dog, the most emblematic of industry but also to refer to Philip K.Dick’s vision in our pets. future world where robotic pets – in this case a sheep – My aim was to create transgenic pets no longer have supplanted real pets. confined to the laboratory but who have entered into I’m also working on several different drawings everyday life. One can find the perfect pet, half cat half made up of dots, similar to old medical or anatomical dog, or a robotic cat watching TV. They all have specific charts, but depicting robots. I have already completed characteristics but at the same time they seem two such drawings “robotic dog acupuncture chart” and standardized and belonging to the same family. In the “robotic dog skeleton anatomy”. I would like to gather all following installations, Dog[LAB]02 and the Hunting these drawings, documents and theoretical texts in a sort Trophies, I pushed the concept of membership even of real fake scientific encyclopedia, similar to a CD-ROM further. In Dog[LAB]02 the living beings of the same I made several years ago named "Les crédébilités species are not only identical but are also clones, which scientifiques" (“scientifical credebilities”) which offered erases the diversity, the differentiation, the multiplicity and an inventory of different mice stocks available for sale, the unitary individual of these animal-robots such as some showing a pathology some not. This classification, Deleuze and Guattari describe it in "A Thousand usually used by laboratories, followed a scientific Plateaus". demonstration based on real mathematical, physical, In Hunting Trophies, as I previously explained, chemical and biological laws, in order to prove the although these animals seem to belong to different existence of imaginary mutant mice. Indeed it was a kind species, they have generic characteristics and seem, of ironical sophism, which pointed out the esoterism of effectively, to be part of a pack. I am particularly scientific discourse which limits the perception of the interested in this standardization of species exhibiting uninformed public, who are therefore unable to evaluate common traits. It expresses a predictable decreasing the credibility of scientific speeches. I would like to do biodiversity, a kind of reverse evolution. the same thing with robots raising new questions about this post-human world. How do you see your future work developing? Some of your work investigates interactions between robots as in Do robotic cats dream of electric fish, others explore possible interactions between humans and animals. Then there is also the possibility of robot killings…
A central concern in my work is the relationship between humans and animals and I think I will keep on investigating this field. I also wish to explore this question of post-human and new life forms, to think about the boundaries between robots (biorobots) incorporating more and more bionics engineering, and living beings incorporating more and more technology such as in Kevin Warwick’s experiments. I am interested in the subject of augmented humanity, the notion of cyborgs, where technology can be envisaged as an extension of our body, an enhancing prosthesis such as Marshall Mac Luhan described it. I will doubtlessly continue to treat these subjects metaphorically but I do feel like building larger scale France Cadet, born in 1971, is a French Artist whose work raises objects to escape this allusion to toys, to confront the questions about various aspects in science debates: danger of possible accidents, observation of animal and human behaviour, artificialisation of audience with life-size sculptures and more immersive life, side effects of cloning... She has run several robotics courses for many installations, or by over-sizing animal-robots (I am years now and teaches robotics at Fine-Arts School of Aix-en-Provence. imagining a 2 or 3 meter high cat-like trophy). She first studied sciences before coming to fine arts. Her work meets those two interests. She had shows in Tokyo, ARS Electronica Linz, What are you currently working on? Lille2004, ARCO 04, Roger Pailhas gallery, La Vilette and Palais de Tokyo. She was awarded the VIDA 6.0 competition in Madrid (1st Prize) and Digital Stadium Awards in Tokyo (1st Prize). MEIAC, the Badajoz A life-size anatomical model of a sheep made out of contemporary art museum, Spain, bought from her a robotic piece. resin. Half the body will show the internal body with the real organs of the animal, and the other half will exhibit For more information please visit http://cyberdoll.free.fr/cyberdoll/index.html the outside body of a sheep-robot. I want to explore where the machine starts and the human or animal France Cadet was interviewed by Antennae in Winter 2008 stops. I chose a sheep to symbolize animal breeding Antennae
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IN C ONVERSATION
WIT H
KEN RINALDO
Ken Rinaldo is an American artist and educator whose work focuses on interactive art installations that explore the intersection between natural and technological systems. He intends his robotic and bio-art installations to merge the organic and electro-mechanical elements seamlessly, to express a gentle symbiosis. Interview by Giovanni Aloi
f your work, you have said that your created a complex and emphatic sound and lightscape of “interdisciplinary media art installations fiber optics, LEDs and tonal squeaking sounds. While a Ol ook to the intersection between natural bit more focused on formal concerns and alluding to life and technological systems. Integration of the at the same time I was also creating works that were organic and electro-mechanical elements asserts actual living system paintings that live on the walls. This a confluence and co-evolution between living and digital and often cacophonous forest of bouncing digital evolving technological material.” How has the creatures analogized the forest of information that we scope of your research evolved since your early are immersed in. They epitomized collective and chaotic works from the 80’s? activity as an analogue for the complex and dynamic processes that constitutes life. I have evolved with less formal concerns and more The work I Yam what I Yam 1989, a kind of living concerns about creating and allowing true natural and systems painting made of yams and potatoes, was one complex systems both social and actual to evolve and such example and it was a mini ecosystem of growing grow, however, I have not fully dismissed formal potatoes and yams though occupied by snails, slugs concerns. potato bugs and a whole host of insects and bacteria. My early 2D and 3D works were systemic and I find my individual and collaborative works formalistic. In my drawings I worked to create systems of moving more toward engineering actual solutions in color and form that were dynamic and integrated that order generate and evolve dialogue around green suggested movement and balance. My early sculpture thinking and sustainable practices. was static, though also tried to allude to movement and biological processes. A number of your works express concern for One of my early works for example, Conception ecological systems that are usually overlooked 1994, alluded to the penetration of sperm into the egg within the realm of technological and cultural and the growth of the fetus. At the time I was inspired progress. What is your approach to the subject? by Ernest Haeckels notion of Ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny as well as the book A Child is Born by Lennart Generally, I am an optimist in spite of the fact that I am Nilsson, so I was thinking about biological form and aware that technology is not the panacea for all. We are cellular growth systems. all familiar with the promises that technology makes to Early sound and motions works like the Cyber- better our lives and I am as excited with new gadgets as Squeaks 1988 (one of the first personal digital pets), 32
Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs Dis-M-Body: Multimedia Installation 1995 Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs
the next person. Still, the speed of technological including found electronics and this was quite convenient, innovation has outpaced the ability for the planet and since we had absolutely no money to purchase new our natural living systems residing therein to evolve materials. Even the paint on the walls was a convenient quickly enough to cope with the change required. Clearly grey because we blended paints discarded by the Home this is why we see cancer rates increasing in humans, Depot. species and diversity decreasing and species extinction In works such as Delicate Balance 1993 I gave a increasing across the planet, with many ecosystems at fish the ability to make a choice to move it’s tank across points of collapse. a tight wire. The Siamese fighting fish suspended in a As artists I think we can infect a new dialogue glass bowl on a tight wire was a clear allusion to the and invent solutions that can have long-term impacts for delicate balance that many of our natural systems find our planet. Especially as technologically informed artists, themselves in. That the fish could only move its tank in we can use social media and tools of science and design one or the other direction is really not much of a choice to allow our technological systems to be more and was a reference to the polemical nature of the considerate of the natural environment that surrounds nature vs. technology discussion. them. Technology is not going away and therefore we In the work I Yam What I Yam, because the piece must engineer and evolve our technological systems to was constructed with living materials and framed with be more sensitive to the needs of the biological. post consumer waste, the work literally degraded and was eaten by worms and slugs. In an early collaborative There is strong growing interest in ecological and works with Amy Youngs we created a large installation environmental issues within the arena of called Dis-M-Body, which were constructed of materials contemporary art. What do you think art can do that would have ended up in dumps, like dryer lint for for the environment and moreover so, how in your Message Slough 1988 or our Genetic Blueprint 1988 a opinion, may intersections between natural and thirty foot rug constructed of human hair collected from technological systems inform this developing all the neighbourhood salons in San Francisco. In fact the field? whole show was constructed of recycled materials
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The space between artist and environmentalist is blurred the home-grown, edible vegetables. in so many contemporary practices. Newton and Helen Later we received a commission from the Mayer Harrison’s public environmental works for Natural World Museum to produce a much larger scale example or Mel Chins Revival Field are great examples of version of our aquaponics garden now called the Farm artworks dealing with environmental issues and infusing Fountain. http://www.farmfountain.com/ the contemporary dialogue of art with that of This work premiered in 2008 at the Te Papa environmentalism. The contemporary architect William Museum in Wellington New Zealand on World McDonough working with chemists to create a database Environment Day, where the work received the Green of mutagenic materials so we can make informed choices Leaf Award presented by the General Secretary of about what we purchase is an excellent start. Environment for the United Nations. Certainly we were In my art/engineering practice (one that intersects with interested in the functionality of this work, though the Amy Youngs, my wife) our dialogue seeks to create beauty of the work helps to sell the idea to the viewer to actual ecologies that also become social solutions. produce their own. We have also created online We have created hydroponics gardens as a start and instructions to allow others to build their own. have now moved into gardens exploiting social networks to give instruction on how to create indoor, DIY What are the challenges involved in working with aquaponic gardens for growing vegetables and edible fish plants and how do they differ from animals? for production of local food. We hope this will catch on and we have Well the fact that animals have central nervous systems published maps online to make this available to all. and can feel pain is one very clear difference. Working with the potatoes and yams was not as difficult as In 2005 you worked on Solar Powered working with fish in the Augmented Fish Reality, 2004 a Hydroponics Herb Garden. This hanging series of robots that allow the fish to move their bowls hydroponics sculpture garden was a place to around at their own will. grow herbs for cooking with all the added benefit I struggled in The Augmented Fish Reality to of water flowing and trickling sounds possible cushion the ride by using foam wheels, to isolate the from an indoor waterfall. The work stemmed from bowls from the motor vibrations. I provided peace lilies a discussion between you and Amy Youngs in each bowl to provide extra oxygen and consume fish surrounding the possibility of creating an indoor waste and put duck weed in the bowls to create a more sustainable garden and alternatives to having natural and complex environment. I also made the bowls large scale petrofarms which involve trucking and move very slowly so the movement would not frighten petrodollars to get the vegetables to your table. the fish. The system also allows the fish to meet others in Aside from being a functional structure, the work the space of the installation without killing each other, as also displayed a sophisticated design solution. these fish are bred to fight to the death. How important is the aesthetic quality in your When I show this work and the fish build large works? and healthy bubble nests to attract females I know at this point that the fish have accepted this robotic bowl as In 2005 we were invited to be artists in residence at their home. Pilchuck Glass School. The Hydroponics Garden really Working with plants is also quite challenging began as research into vessels and the beauty of glass. At even when the plants are dead and dried as with the time we were also talking about indoor solutions to Autopoiesis 2000, an artificial life sculptural consciousness. growing edible plants in containers that would also be When I ship this work around the world, each country aesthetically pleasing. We felt this would allow us to that the piece travels to requires stringent paperwork enjoy the natural beauty of the plants both above and proving the dried Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines have below the water. been fumigated. On a trip to Norway I told an organic farmer about this piece and his comment back was that in fact In your practice, you have focused on interactive hydroponics can be quite damaging to the environment art in particular, as it encourages active, self as such systems rely heavily on chemicals to give the determined-relationships with a work of art and plants their necessary nutrients. points to a co-evolved coupling between human, While this was disappointing in a way it also machine, nature and culture. Who are your helped to evolve our dialogue. We began research and philosophical references thorough the construction of smaller systems that would use fish waste development of this focus? to provide fertilizer to the plants. At first we used small fish like goldfish to provide nutrients to the herbs in our For me this is a dialogue that has evolved over years of early versions. We built two larger versions including one experiencing reading and observing complex webs both in our studio that currently houses 7 tilapia fish and technological and natural. It is difficult to site one book or because of their size they provide enough nutrients to article in particular or some list of academic references,
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Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs Farm Fountain, 2008 Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs
though I can say that many books and readings I have to technology and war. Recently, I enjoyed The Smaller done over the years populate and act as examples of the Majority by Piotr Naskrecki about insect worlds as well as kind of thinking I have come to, through observation and David Levy’s Love and Sex with Robots. I also have my research. As a teenager I was so inspired by my marine daily journals and blog readings about nanotechnology, biology teacher Dr. Ernest at Ward Melville High School. human machine interaction, genetics and robotics from As an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa publications such as Wired, Scientific American, Antennae, Barbara, where I studied communications, I had the good The New Scientist, Physed.org, MIT Technology Review and fortune to work with James Greer Miller one of the We Make Money Not Art….to name a few. founding researchers studying and defining living systems theory. James Seawright, builder of robotic sculptures It was inspirational to me to see that you could since the mid-60’s in an interview from 1994 (AI think of corporations for example as living systems and Expert, January, p.28) explained, “The success of do an analysis of the health of the organization by robotic art is that it challenges its viewers and looking at their matter, energy and information flows. I causes them to re-think their assumptions about realize how seminal this research was to me in thinking the world. Something that’s puttering around and of machines and code as possible living systems in blinking and flashing will attract a lot of people, research into artificial life. The Silent Spring by Rachel and without viewers thinking about whether or Carson was a deeply moving poetic and sobering book not this is art, it certainly will get their defining natural system interconnectedness and Myron attention.” Do you agree with his view? Krueger’s Artificial Reality was influential in helping me to understand the possibilities of interactive art. Readings on robotics by Rodney Brooks on I admire the works of James Seawright very much. I both subsumption architectures and behaviour-based robotics agree and disagree on some levels. At this point the new was influential in my approaches as well as the ideas of viewer is more sophisticated, since now even our most Lynne Margulis on symbiogenesis. Manuel Delanda’s A basic toys blink and interact. We now have toys that we Thousand Years of Nonlinear History and War in the Age of can develop relationships with us and many that have the Intelligent Machines are important books to defining our emerging and evolving relationships
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Ken Rinaldo and Mark Grossman The Flock, 2004 Ken Rinaldo and Mark Grossman
the added benefit of narrative as defined by super heroes you end up with too many “bell and whistle” works. and animation, to build upon the imagination of who plays. What are the challenges and potentials involved Works such as Text Rain, by Camille Utterback’s in the conflation of animal studies and robotic art or Victoria Elevation by Rafael Lozano Hemmer, or within your practice? Listening Post by Ben Rubin and Mark Hanson are highly complex and poetic. They offer new and expanded Well I would say the primary conflation of these distinct poetic paradigms of what James Seawright has entities goes to the idea of human attributions of pioneered. intelligence in robotics and art. People can confuse the very complex behaviours of robotic entities with living What is the relationship between robotic art and systems because they express body language or do some audiences at present? tasks quite well. While many of these systems are indeed It is a rapidly changing space as artists become better complex, they barely approach the most primitive beings programmers and roboticists and the tools continue to in their complexity. What do I mean by this? Well let’s become easier, less expensive and more ubiquitous. I see look at the more sophisticated robotics of our time, a whole host of up-and-coming artists defining the field. perhaps Boston dynamic’s Big Dog, which claims to be Sabrina Raaf, David Bowen and Fernando Orellana for the most sophisticated quadruped of it’s time and indeed example, and newcomers like Paula Gaetano Adi who it is amazing to see a headless dog robot walking up a hill are defining new interfaces between the biological, carrying a 340 pound pack, while simultaneously it has technological and audience. the sound of a chainsaw (not exactly creating a stealthy I think audiences are extremely receptive and military robot) and creates an almost steam punk entertained by robotics art, though powerful tools should primitive aesthetic. always be tempered by poetic approaches or It was fun to recently hear that IBM’s new Sequoia computer IBM's new Blue Gene L
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Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs Farm Fountain, 2008 (detail) Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs
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supercomputer that contains 4,096 processors can work differs from much a-life art in his mixing of process 360 trillion floating point operations per second, this desire for a role in the creation of an though it does not even come close to the intelligence of environment in which autonomous behaviour a mouse brain. might emerge with a concern for “sustaining a Fiction is much easier then the reality of actually kind of evolved wisdom, which arises out of our creating robotic entities that in fact create complex symbiotic relations with all other living flora and intertwined ecologies as the simplest bacteria have done. fauna that surround, envelop and exist within This conflation also happens when adults and us.” (Kenneth Rinaldo, personal communication children see works such as Autopoiesis as they see the with the author, January 17, 2005) What are the robots are seeing them and during its premiere I was potentials involved with this ‘evolved system’? astounded that some adults were afraid to enter the space and some children would burst into tears, while I want to talk to my fish and ask him what he thinks. I others would run forward interacting and laughing with enjoy trying to understand the motivations of animals joy. and have so enjoyed observing our pet rabbits, past dogs When a robot can evolve from the bottom up and cats and trying to climb into their minds. The and give birth to another robot then things will really get research of Temple Grandin is quite inspiring here in more interesting and simultaneously scary. I would like to working to understand the motives of animals. create a robot that could give birth to another robot. I I like to say that I am bacteria as we all have ten wonder if Lennart Nilsson would be interested? times more bacteria in and on us then we have human cells. I am not an individual, as much as a spontaneous The Flock (1994) is a group of musical cloud of associating cells… Put that anti-bacterial soap interactive sound sculptures which exhibit down! behaviours analogous to the flocking found in natural groups such as birds, schooling fish or In 1966, Carl Andre wrote ‘The course of flying bats. Flocking behaviours demonstrate development: sculpture as form; sculpture as characteristics of supra organization, of a series structure, sculpture as place.’ Where does your of animals or artificial life forms that act as one work stand with regards to his definition? creature. How did the concept behind the work develop? Well I do enjoy Carl Andre’s work, the materiality and ordered form the relationship to the spaces, though Well the work evolved from questions I was asking perhaps I was a bit more inspired by an inspiration of during my graduate work at San Francisco State Andre’s, which was Brancusi. In Brancusi’s work there are University in Conceptual and Information Arts. It began more formalistic references to life, which interests me. I with wanting to create a robot that would be attracted am more excited with Jack Burnham’s writings on to humans and display body languages to express the sculpture and Hans Haacke’s approaches to social “emotion” of the machine. My thesis Advisor Dr. Steve systems sculpture and now software-based entities Wilson suggested that I needed to check out the Senster contextualize and adapt to humans, place and space, by Edward Ihnatowicz. both architectural and behaviourally. When I saw this sculpture I was very excited, though I also knew I needed to advance the field as any Back in the 90’s the acceptance of interactive MFA candidate should and I felt that to create a robotic art in the Contemporary Art circuit was to sculpture that could move toward sound, display body a degree problematic. Do you find that the language and then allow others to respond intelligently involvement of animals and plants in your work through intercommunication would be this advancement. facilitates or hinders that kind of Indeed this work took five years after graduation acknowledgment? working with Mark Grossman one of the cofounders of Silicon Graphics. We intended to create 10 arms, though Yes I do agree that in the 90s and even now museums ended up with three for the premiere at Machine have very different expectations about how interactive Culture at Siggraph in 1993 curated by Simon Penny. art should behave and especially these forms that involve Later I was able to more fully explore many of these living creatures. Still, curators are updating and re- ideas in Autopoiesis, as they moved toward body heat educating themselves about bio-based art forms and I and also intercommunicated to emerge into a proto see tremendous interest in these fusions. group consciousness. They premiered in Helsinki Finland Still, there is a relationship between the gallery in at the Kiasma Museum 2000 for the Alien Intelligence system and the museum’s ability to collect. Animals and exhibition. plants certainly problematize the collection of these things, as animals and plants die and the value of work is In her essay ‘Artificial Life and the lives of the seen as relating to the long-term expectation for Non-Human’, Carol Gigliotti writes “Rinaldo’s appreciation.
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Ken Rinaldo Autotelematic Spider Bots, 2006 Ken Rinaldo
Still, bio art is certainly the rage with many curators ants and bats. I called them spiders because humans have (especially in the festivals circuit) and I think we will find a a primordial fear of spiders and I felt this would create a time when the museum curators begin to purchase psychic charge and I also find spiders fascinating. them, though perhaps we are only at the Damien Hirst I have observed common house spiders watch stage where the shark must be placed in formaldehyde over and protect their young for whole seasons and I am first, in order to be preserved. always amazed at their complex web architectures and strategies of laying in wait for prey. I was so excited to The Autotelematic Spider Bots from 2006, was find scientific micrographs of spider joints and this also an artificial life robotic installation. It consisted influenced the design of the compression tension of 10 spider-like sculptures that interacted with structures that were employed in the legs of this work. the public in real-time and self-modified their behaviours, based on their interaction with the Each bot included in the installation could also viewer, themselves, their environment, and their be seen as an artificial life chimera; a robotic food source. The robots were constantly seeking spider, eating and finding its food like an ant, human interaction by swinging their antennae seeing like a bat with the voice of an electronic back and forth to find people. Any newly twittering bird. Could you tell us why you decided established connection resulted in the display of to create a chimeric being rather than keep the different behaviours, which manifested behavioural traits of spiders? themselves immediately and over time as the series evolved. Why did you decide to focus on Part of this is because the sensor systems that would spiders? allow the robots to act intelligently are suggestive of so many animal and insect morphologies. The ultrasonic Well this chimerical creature was a blending of spiders, sensors suggested bats and how they see and the 39
twittering, while not fully like a bird suggested birds. The made from many parts. This artwork explores the original notion was to create digital pheromones to collective body of earth, animal and forests intertwined emulate ants and the collective behaviour of the nest. I with the technological body that supports and surrounds explored many approaches to make this a reality us. The video footage was collected in the urban body of including Bluetooth communications and infrared sight. central Ohio and constitutes a sampling of our Having natural animal referents also helps landscapes, cityscapes, technoscapes, parks and zoos. humans to better comprehend the behaviours and Interactive cameras allow explorations at many scales creates a better basis for understanding. While one creating a non-hierarchical, ever-changing whole. robot was able to find the food source and indeed they Part of the work is a magnification camera to could intercommunicate through Bluetooth however, view insects and fingers and parts of your body so you because of budgetary constraints and lack of time, we can see relationships between systems both natural and were not able to fully realize the robots finding and technological at many scales and this allows one to see communicating their food source back to the other self and other living things amplified and imaged in the robots. Matt Howard the brilliant programmer for the technology. Mostly the work is life-centric including project has since returned to spending time with his humans though not privileging humans. biological child, so the project will instead evolve at some I am also working on a commission for an future time when I am not pursuing other newer upcoming show in Moscow to open in March and I am projects. producing 3 robots called the Paparazzi Bots 2009. They are a series of three autonomous robots, each standing How did audiences react to this work? at the height of the average human. Comprised of multiple cameras, sensors and robotic actuators on a I think the audience was very excited and receptive with custom-built rolling platform, they move at the speed of the works on many levels. First that the works were a walking human, avoiding walls and obstacles while using constructed of clear plastic and to some extent given infrared sensors to move toward humans. birth by machines (rapid prototyping machines) created They seek one thing, which is to capture photos an instant technological level of interest. That the works of people and to make these images available to the used an open electronic aesthetic and showed the guts press and the world wide web as a statement of culture's of the machine, while they also behaved in a lifelike obsession with the “celebrity image” and especially our fashion, which made them very popular with the own images. The flash autonomously goes off, capturing exhibition attendees. people’s photos and elevating them to “celebrity” in a I think it was also interesting for many viewers kind of momentary anointing by the robots. The robots to see that the behaviours were completely also become celebrities through their association to the unpredictable in spite of the fact that the robots all had “famous people” at the exhibition that are captured by the same programming. Local interaction and the Paparazzi Bots. unstructured environments added the necessary Each autonomous robot will make the decision environmental and reactive space for the behavioural to take the photos of particular people, while ignoring evolution of both chaotic as well as structured and other humans in the exhibition, based on things such as, organized behaviours at times. whether or not the viewers are smiling and the robots will then stop and use a series of bright flashes to record Which technology is likely to allow further that moment. The fact that the cameras will only take exploring within the subject of interspecies your picture if you smile is a wonderful manipulation by communication? the machine that forces our smile, even if we are not feeling happy. I think it will be the combination of a number of Surveillance technologies straddle a delicate technologies. The combination of statistical analysis, balance that we have in contemporary culture, where we vision systems, remote robotics, better battery systems, are all photographed without our knowledge by cell remote navigation systems and context-specific phones, hidden cameras and sometimes “celebritized”. awareness of an animal’s reasons for doing something. This is a kind of modern baptism with the camera flash We will also learn from MRI and micro brain probes to and the spectacle of being the focus of the camera read neural signals in relation to specific cues. becoming a kind of techno anointing. This work explores ideas surrounding the shifting What are you currently working on? territories of self and machine and how machines can manipulate the other (now us) in a grand co-evolutionary I’m working on Exquisite Bodies, a collaborative dance of emerging robot-human relations. installation with Amy Youngs, which is currently being Oh wait! I think my Facebook and Linkedin installed at a science museum in Columbus Ohio called robot is telling me to connect with someone. COSI. Based on the idea of the “exquisite corpse”, this video mobile takes the form of an integrated whole,
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For more
Ken Rinaldo Augmented Fish Reality: Transparencies Communication Artwork, 2004 Ken Rinaldo
Ken Rinaldo is an artist and theorist who creates interactive multimedia He was the recipient of first prize for Vida 3.0 an international installations that blur the boundaries between the organic and inorganic. competition on Artificial life, an Award of Distinction from Ars Electronica He has been working at the intersection of art and biology for over two in 2004 for the work Augmented Fish Reality, an Honorable Mention in decades working in the catagories of interactive robotics, biological art, 2001 at Ars Electronica Austria for Autopoiesis and has received artificial life, interspecies communication, rapid prototyping and digital numerous grants and awards including an Ohio Arts Council Grant, and 3 imaging. His works have been commissioned and displayed nationally and Battelle Endowment for Technology and Human Affaires grants. internationally at museums, galleries and festivals such as: The Biennale of Rinaldo teaches interactive installlation, robotics & electronics, 3D Electronic Arts Perth Australia, Exit Festival France, Transmediale Berlin, modeling & rapid prototyping, digital imaging, multimedia and Directs the Germany, ARCO Arts Festival Madrid, Spain, The OK Center for Art and Technology program in the Department of Art at The Ohio State Contemporary Art, ARS ELECTRONICA, Austria; The Kiasma Museum of University in Columbus Ohio. Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland; The Australian Center for Photograhy; The Chicago Art Institute, Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Northern Illinois University Art Museum, Chicago; The Home For more information please visit http://kenrinaldo.com Show, Seoul, Korea; V2 Dutch Electronica Arts Festival, Rotterdam, Holland; Image Du Future, Montreal, Canada; Siggraph, Los Angeles; The Ken Rinaldo was interviewed by Antennae in Autumn 2008 Antennae Exploratorium, San Francisco.
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T HE EVOLUTION OF
NANO ROBOTICS
Metin Sitti is Associate Professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and is a pioneer in the nanomanufacturing, haptic interfaces, and tele-robotics. We asked him about the inspiration animals provide to his practice. Questions by Paul Thomas
Metin Sitti Water Strider, 2004 Metin Sitti
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icro- and nanoscale robotic systems constitute workforce. Potential applications of these research my main research and educational activities. In activities include health-care, space, homeland security, Mmy NanoRobotics Lab, our major environmental monitoring, search and rescue, micro/nanorobotics research area is the miniaturization entertainment, and education. The evolution of of robots with a variety of locomotion and manipulation technology from something as basic as a club or knife, to capabilities at the small scale. One of my ultimate goals is something with complex moving parts, to something that to scale down some of these robots to sub-millimeter runs on electricity -a force of nature- to the most recent overall sizes. Unique characteristics of these miniature developments of technology that imitates life, and robots are: direct accessibility to smaller spaces and perhaps might even one day need the definitions we scales; new physics and mechanisms; smaller, faster, light currently assign to a living being. What are your thoughts weight, and inexpensive device; massively parallel, large on the developments in nano-technology as man -or numbers, and distributed operation; and multi length- even evolution itself- coming full-circle via biomimicry? scale system integration. My main research objectives for these robots Although we have significant progress in are: to introduce a system level mechatronic design biological inspiration at the macroscale, current advances methodology including new micro/nanoscale physics, on nanotechnology could eventually enable biomimicry mechanisms, actuators, power sources, and control; to even at the molecular scale by controlling the matter develop new micro/nanoscale manipulation, down to nanometer scale. Due to these developments, manufacturing and control methods; to propose we could have started to design and manufacture life-like alternative methods for powering miniature robots; to and man-made new materials, structures, devices, or demonstrate unique applications for these robots with a systems recently. positive impact on our society. The approach to realise these above objectives Why don't we see robots featuring more firstly involves developing a biologically inspired miniature prominently in daily life? A tradition of futuristic robot design methodology. Being inspired by lizards, movies heavily forecasted the automatisation of insects and bacteria, new miniature climbing, crawling, our lives - but I still make my own toast in the swimming, and water walking robots are proposed. morning. Do we assume that robotic will always Adapting the just good-enough and efficient solutions of be more a matter of research and development nature at the small scale to miniature robots, repeatable going towards areas or specific relevance, like adhesives, new principles of locomotion, and efficient and some of your projects? agile motion mechanisms are introduced. Using these biomimetic robots, many unknown design, locomotion, The challenge in robotics has been designing and building and material properties of these biological systems are robots that could work autonomously and reliably in also discovered, leading to scientific contributions. unstructured indoors and outdoors environments. We As a secondary approach, high volume new have just started to see Rumba type of relatively simple micro/nanoscale manufacturing and rapid prototyping cleaning robots in our houses after long years of research methods such as laser micro-machining, and development. In my research, our new materials micro/nanomolding, and parallel micro/nanoassembly that we have developed for robots will be methods have been proposed. Using these commercialized to use them in our daily lives first rather manufacturing techniques, the aim is to mass produce than our robots due to the mentioned challenge. miniature robots to have tens or hundreds of them for However, this trend will change by the research efforts mobile sensor networks and swarm robotic applications of the roboticists around the world, and we would see in the future. Currently, only mass-production of gecko much more robots in our houses and offices. inspired polymer microfiber adhesives in wafer scale has been demonstrated. As precision micro/nanoscale Scientists and engineers are increasingly turning manipulation and assembly methods, atomic force to nature for inspiration -is it simply because microscope (AFM) probes are used to manipulate technology has reached that threshold to where micro/nanoentities such as particles, carbon nanotubes, they can look to nature for viable and executable and polymer fibers. solutions, or are there other reasons? One of the most critical bottlenecks of the miniaturization of robots is the lack of a miniature on- We look at nature for inspiration more especially when board energy/power source. We have been working on we deal with new and unknown problems in technology two alternative methods for powering miniature robots: and science. For example, many not fully understood wireless power transfer for biomedical micro-robots and nanoscale phenomena drive some scientists and harvesting power from bio-microorganisms. engineers to learn how evolution has enabled structuring, All of my research and educational activities are mechanics, and control of materials at the nanoscale as for advancing the micro/nanoscale robotics science and one of the potential solutions to the given problem. engineering and training the micro/nanoengineering
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Metin Sitti Water Strider, 2004 Metin Sitti
Thus, biomimetics is a starting point in these cases, and organisms use unique physical principles at the we mostly end up solutions that go even beyond nature. micro/nanoscale to be very agile, power efficient, robust, As another observation, man-made technologies are and adaptive in unstructured environments and we learn currently moving us away from nature more and more from them to build new tiny robots with all sorts of and putting us more inside cyberspaces, cars, rooms, etc. locomotion capability. As a reaction to this trend, looking at nature and developing new bio-inspired technologies could get us Creative people often end up having unusual and closer to nature psychologically. Therefore, we see more interesting materials at their disposal, and many and more products inspired by biological systems that are particularly fascinated by the potentials of excite and attract people to use them in their daily lives. the latest materials and technologies. Which of the materials you work with could become of Which animals more often than others, inform interest to artists? Why? the developments or robotics and nano robotics? Following up the state-of-the-art materials and For miniature robots down to micron scale, it is technologies is a must for some artists and most interesting to look at small animals such as lizards, insects, engineers. Especially, in my case, compact size and low and microorganisms while we can look at proteins, DNA weight requirements and highly dynamic and complex and biological motors inside cells for nanoscale robots. small-scale mechanics of miniature mobile robots entail Since I have focused on mostly miniature robots down very strong and light composite materials, smart materials to micron scale currently, I have been inspired by lizards that can be used as structures, sensors, actuators, and such as geckos that can climb on almost any surface using power source simultaneously, new adhesives that can their adhesive foot-hairs and basilisk lizards that can run temporarily stick, etc. Carbon fiber composites that we on water, insects such as flies that can do crazy are using could be used by artists to make light and maneuvers and water striders that can walk on water strong structures, our polymer adhesives could be used using surface tension, and cells such as bacteria for fast to attach materials temporarily without damaging them, and efficient micron scale swimming robots. These small and our sensor, actuator and battery integrated soft and
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flexible skins can be used in performing arts.
Which is the most interesting artwork involving robotics you have seen recently? Why?
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis movie in 1927 is still my hit as the first film using robots where a woman is turned into an android basically. Next, Fantastic Voyage in 1968 is a significant movie that shows how we could have a journey inside the human body by miniaturizing a submarine. Such a journey is one of the most fun dreams that we have since we are always curious about inside our bodies and like to see and control what is going on directly. Looking at recent movies, you could see many scenes that involve robots inside. I mostly use these movies in my courses to give my students creative examples of new artistic robotics concepts. As an example of a robotics scene in recent movies, Wall-E is a very interesting one to show us how robots could be so useful in our daily lives to clean our mess and comfort us while they could make us too lazy and fat creatures that forget walking eventually, and how robots could have some emotions against each other.
What fuels your microbots?
Microbatteries are possible for our microbots but their power is very limited. Therefore, we have two major approaches currently. First, we beam the power using Metin Sitti magnetic fields or a laser to them remotely. This off- Climbing Robot Metin Sitti board powering concept removes the on-board power source requirement, which is one of the most significant bottlenecks of microbots. Next, we are trying to use Which are the most common misconceptions that cells or biological motors as their actuators where cells people have about nanotechnology? use the chemical energy in their liquid environment. This is a new direction for fueling microbots in liquid In my nanoscale robotics research field, one big issue is environments. the misconceptions of nanorobots that look like macron scale large robots and realize inside the body or blood Is the term "nano" being overused? The term is a doing cellular surgery type of magical tasks. These are size qualifier, however, it seems to have become mostly artworks and not scientific illustrations to tell very popular nowadays blurring the boundaries of people the potentials of nanotechnology. Nanoscale what the term effectively defines. What qualifies world is stochastic (jiggling all the time); there are a lot of as "nano" in your book? physical and chemical interactions going on all the time; we can’t use rigid mechanisms and locomotion principles As you mention nanobot is mostly overused and that we can typically use in macroscale robots; blood is generally a science fiction term currently from the overall one of the most dangerous and complex places to put a size perspective. The smallest autonomous mobile small robot inside the body; materials properties can robots that we could build in the near future would be significantly change at the nanoscale; ... hundreds of micron scale in ‘overall size’, which is already a revolutionary step in small-scale robotics. So, for me, One of your biggest contributions to eh field has nanorobotics does not mean the overall size of the been the gecko-like dry adhesive material. Thus robot being nanometer scale for the moment. As long far, does this technology just work with as we build tiny robots down to micron scale that use lightweight subjects or could you see it working nanoscale physical principles as a dominant source of with humans? locomotion and interaction in their tasks and they have nanoscopic components, these robots could be counted We can use our gecko-like polymer adhesives for sticking as nanoscale objects up to many kilogram scale weights temporarily or repeatedly. When you go up to human scale, e.g. making
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the Spiderman possible, it is not feasible to use such to design and build robots that could do multiple adhesives to carry an adult’s body weight since the lifting locomotion. As the next topic, we have focused our capability of these adhesives scale with area while our efforts on biomedical applications of miniature robots weight scales with volume. Thus, scaling law is against us inside the human body. We have developed pill size for too large objects. Therefore, we are planning to use robots that you could swallow to conduct biopsy and them as gripping materials for sports clothing, shoes, and localized drug delivery inside our digestive tract, micron gloves, skin adhesives, climbing robot attachment scale swimming robots that are propelled by attached materials, packaging material, etc. bacteria in stagnant fluids of the human body for targeted drug delivery, and micron scale magnetic robots that can How aware do you think mainstream audiences be steered inside the body for biomedical applications. are of the advancements in your field? Finally, we are trying to commercialize our gecko foot- hairs inspired repeatable adhesive materials for variety of The public hears about many new exciting developments daily life applications. in miniature robotics and bio-inspired materials from the media frequently since they are very attractive and challenging topics. However, some of the news include too much hype and the public could end up thinking that those challenges are resolved completely and they tend to have high expectations. In reality, only a tiny piece of the overall big challenge is attempted to be solved typically.
Do you receive any criticism regarding ethical concerns as the boundaries between organism and mechanism blur? For example- hasn't there already been a Michael Crichton book about it?
Autonomous swarms of small robots is one of the images of the potential danger of nanotechnology in our daily lives in the future as mentioned in the novel, Prey.
Definitely, we could always use any technology or robot against us. Therefore, ethical precautions need to be taken against potential dangers of small robots also. However, research and development efforts on small- scale robotics should not be influenced negatively by these potential negative images since these robots would have many high impact and positive applications in healthcare, space, inspection, environment monitoring, toys, and search and rescue.
How did you get involvde with this field when you were growing up?
I grew up loving animals and nature where I have been always curious about biological systems’ complexity, elegance, and diversity. I loved documentaries and Metin Sitti dreamed to be a crewmember in a sea exploration ship Gecko Metin Sitti to discover about sea life more. My curiosity to also man-made mechanisms and machines has attracted my attention to design and build robots. By combining both Metin Sitti is an associate Professor in Department of Mechanical curiosities, I am currently trying to realize some of my Engineering and Robotics Institute in the Carnegie Mellon University. He dreams. obtained his PhD in Tokyo University. He is interested in Micro/Nanorobotics, nanomanufacturing, MEMS/NEMS, biomimetic micro/nanosystems, directed self-assembly, bionanotechnology , haptic What are currently working on? interfaces, and tele-robotics. He conducted the Micromechanical Flying Insect Project. I am currently working on bio-inspired miniature robots that can climb, fly, and walk simultaneously. Since animals don’t just do one type of locomotion, we are challenging Metin Sitti was interviewed by Antennae in Autumn 2008 Antennae 46
THE AMBIVALENT
POWER OF THE
ROBOT
Minsoo Kang questions ideals about our emotional, imaginative and intellectual reactions to the illusion that robots are alive or lifelike. This essay presents theories from psychology, philosophy, history as well as contemporary theories surrounding the acceptance of robots in human cultures in creating an evolved human/machine nature. Text by Minsoo Kang
few months after I began my research for my the play, to watch how well he executed the double act. book on the automaton as an idea in the When he stopped in mid-motion, the performance was A Western imagination, I saw something that raised to another level as the viewers, aware that he was brought home to me the complexity of the issues I was now pretending to be an inert object (a man pretending dealing with. A friend and I were walking through the to be a machine pretending to be a man pretending to Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, be a statue), waited for someone to approach him so he when we came across a street performer dressed in a would move again with the pretense of frightening that silver suit, his face and hands painted in the same color, person. This performance seemed like a reenactment of pretending to be a robot. He entertained a crowd with countless such scenes from science fiction and horror slow, mechanical movements of his limbs, hips, and head, movies in which people are terrorized by robots, statues until he stopped in mid-motion. He remained still until a and dolls animated by a malevolent force. The act was little girl approached him with curiosity. When she came one of harmless fun but there was an undercurrent of close and made a face at him, the performer came alive uneasiness, in the acting out of danger by the young girl again, sending the girl running with a delighted squeal, and in my friend finding the spectacle “creepy.” much to the amusement of the spectators. The performance raises a number of essential questions about our emotional, imaginative and “He’s really good,” my friend said, “but the whole intellectual reactions to the robot which I will pursue in thing’s kind of creepy, too, isn’t it?” this essay. At the most basic level, what exactly is so interesting about a robot? Why are we so captivated by I was immersed in thoughts of automata at the the life-imitating machine that we are so entertained by time, so I naturally found the scene of great interest. As I them? Also, why do we harbor such disparate feelings pondered the nature of the spectacle, several immediate toward them from amusement and delight to fear and thoughts came to me. From a conceptual point of view, horror? Why is it that while scientists and engineers are the performer’s act was of a complex order, as it hard at work in creating ever more sophisticated robots featured a man pretending to be a machine that and computers, writers and filmmakers keep narrating pretends to be a man. Also, even in this technologically stories of violent confrontations between humanity and advanced society, where all manner of machines, from machinery? the massively industrial to the conveniently portable, are ubiquitous and essential to the daily functioning of 1. people’s lives, there is something about the mimicry of machinery that can still enthral people. Furthermore, the In discussions of the psychological significance of performance was made possible by a ritualistic complicity the automaton, the work that is most often cited is on the part of the spectators. Sigmund Freud’s essay “The ‘Uncanny’” (1919), which The viewers knew full well that the performer builds on an earlier psychological work by Ernst was a human being pretending to be a machine that Jentschcalled “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” pretends to be a man, since only a child could seriously think that he was an actual robot. Yet they willingly suspended that knowledge for the peculiar pleasure of 47
(1906).1 Jentsch describes the feeling of the uncanny as feeling, however fleeting, that it was my wishing that was one that is aroused when one encounters an entity or responsible for the death. Also young children tend to finds oneself in a situation that is unfamiliar view and treat their dolls and toys as at least potentially orunexpected, making it difficult to make sense of it living beings.5 So when we encounter a robot, an object through one’s established worldview. The “psychic that acts as if it is alive, we momentarily return to the insecurity” caused by such an event translates into time in our lives before the boundary line between the emotions ranging from anxiety to terror. An example of animate and inanimate was firmly established in our this is the reaction to uncertainty on whether something minds. Freud does not spell out why this situation one encounters is an inanimate object or a living being, should lead to the feeling of the uncanny, but presumably the insecurity heightened when an object not only looks an adult encountering an intimation of the animistic is like an animate creature but also behaves like one, like an taken back to childhood feelings of being small, automaton that plays a musical instrument or dances.2 vulnerable and frightened of all the unknown things in Jentsch points to the German Romantic writer E. T. A. the world, which shakes all the confidence gained in the Hoffmann as a figure who successfully makes use of this process of growing up. So the anxiety and terror that effect in many of his fantastic tales. Although he does result are from the fear of losing the grip on reality and not cite it, the Hoffmann work he obviously has in mind consequently being reduced to a powerless child. is the 1816 story “The Sandman,” in which a man finds Jentsch and Freud’s ideas on the uncanny shed out that the woman he is in love with is an automaton significant light on the more unsettling aspects of the and is driven insane by the revelation.3 robot, but they are inadequate as comprehensive Freud uses the story to criticize Jentsch’s ideas explanations of its power. There is no doubt that the on two levels – first, that the latter’s definition of the uncanny is a major component of our reaction to the uncanny is incomplete (i.e. not all things that are robot, but while the object can be creepy and frightening unfamiliar or unexpected necessarily arouse the feeling of under certain circumstances, it can also be fun, amusing, the uncanny, so it needs to be specified); and second, fascinating and enlightening in others. What makes it that given the ambiguity inherent in the very meaning of such an interesting subject is precisely the fact that it can the German word unheimlich, the cause of the uncanny arouse such a wide range of emotions. Freud’s argument may not be the unfamiliar at all, but something that is could be extended to the more positive side of our quite familiar but repressed.4 In his detailed analysis of reaction to the automaton, so that the fun and fascinating the “The Sandman,” Freud dismissed the importance of aspect of the object also arises from childhood, a return the automaton in the story, seeing the essence of the to the magical time when we derived enjoyment from uncanny in the recurring references to eyes and to the playing with dolls and robots which we imagined were doppelgänger figure. He asserts that the feeling arises our friends. As Freud himself points out, “children have from two closely related sources – castration anxiety (i.e. no fear of their dolls coming to life, they may even desire loss of eyes - loss of testicles) and a return to the it.”6 animistic worldview of childhood. Young children, But what is lacking in the Jentsch-Freud essays on unfamiliar with how the world works, begin with an the uncanny is an explanation of how the automaton can animistic view which is characterized by the idea that all switch from being a frightening, uncanny thing in one things are alive and by the magical belief in the context, to an amusing and captivating object in another. “omnipotence of thought.” As we grow up and This is crucial because both Jentsch’s and Freud’s progressively gain understanding of our environment, we analyses, as they apply to the robot, raise the following shed such ideas in favor of more realistic ones. Even questions – if it is such an uncanny thing that reminds us then, however, we sometimes find ourselves in situations of the frightening, animistic world of childhood, why do in which we are taken back to the animistic worldview if we, as adults, keep making robots, writing about them only for a moment. For instance, if I wish that someone and producing movies which feature them, to so much who annoys me greatly would just drop dead, and then I pleasure?; if the uncanny is the result of the return of the hear that the person died suddenly around the time I repressed, what is the source of the amusement and joy had the thought, I might experience a chill from the we also derive from the object?; and, what exactly are the conditions under which the pleasure and fascination we feel toward the robot turn into anxiety and horror, and vice versa? A comprehensive theory of the symbolism must cover the full range of those emotions and explain their relationship to one another. 1 Sigmund Freud, “The ‘Uncanny,” trans. Alix Strachey, in Writings on Art and Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 193–229; Ernst Jentsch, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny,” trans. Roy Sellars, Angelaki 2 (1995): 7–16. 2 Jentsch, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny,” 12. 3 See E. T. A. Hoffmann, “The Sandman,” in Tales of Hoffmann, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin Books, 1982), 85–125 5 Freud, “The ‘Uncanny,’” 208 – 209. 4 Freud, “The ‘Uncanny,’” 195–201. 6 Freud, “The ‘Uncanny,’” 209. 48
2. One problem with overly determined theories of the to the community’s development of more abstract automaton’s power is that they present explanations that notions like pure/impure, sacred/profane, are too intellectual for what initially occurs at a largely natural/unnatural, normal/abnormal, sane/insane, instinctual level. A man strolls by an object that he moral/immoral. Lévi-Strauss considers that this assumes to be an inert, immobile thing like a statue, until prevalence of dualistic thinking in the world has biological it suddenly moves, revealing it to be a robot or a person roots, perhaps in the structure of the human brain itself.8 pretending to be a robot. This startles him greatly, It is beyond the scope of this essay to assess whether despite the fact that it poses no physical danger to him. this human tendency to view reality in binary terms is The initial feeling of fright comes from a sense of the indeed rooted in biology, or linguistically determined, or unexpected – of an object he assumes to be one thing socially constructed (in all probability a combination of all turning out to be another – but even after the moment three), and the point is a controversial one in passes and he understands what the thing is, a feeling of contemporary discussions on the topic.9 Once an entire uneasiness persists in him. He may dispel it with worldview based on binary categories is set up, it is laughter, assuring himself that what occurred was not a affirmed over time through ritual, custom, law and serious thing and he can be good sport about it, or he education, eventually solidifying into tradition. Such a may react with anger at the psychological disturbance it pre-determined schema of reality provides the crucial caused him. But the initial impact is felt at an immediate, confidence people need to face the world, solve its visceral level, capturing his attention in a single instant, problems, and explore its boundaries. Because that is with the conscious articulation of that reaction coming essential to survival, a conservative bias sets in after a afterwards. For this reason the explanation of the time as people feel compelled to defend it against what automaton’s power must start at the level of perception, threatens it. cognition and emotional reaction. The problem is that reality-in-itself is not The philosopher Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of composed of clear-cut categories, being an essentially Pure Reason (1787), criticized the empirical notion of the amorphous, unstable and every-changing state that the human mind as a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which human mind is constantly trying to impose a sense of information from the senses gets imprinted, eventually coherence on. Consequently, no matter how rigidly set forming ideas and understanding. If the mind were such and strongly supported by tradition and institutions a a passive receiver of phenomenal data from the outside worldview is, it inevitably encounters entities, events and world, it would become hopelessly lost in a chaotic swirl, situations that defy it and threaten to expose it for an overwhelmed at every moment by an avalanche of arbitrary human construction that it is. This poses a impressions flooding in from the five senses. Kant danger to the community since by undermining the asserted that the mind is equipped with innate tools that foundations of its shared reality, it could potentially be allow it to sort out the enormous amount of received thrown into a conceptual chaos in which its members information and shape them into a coherent picture of find themselves lost in an unfathomable world, resulting reality in which things are organized in terms of space, time, causation, unity and other categories of understanding. From this automatic structuring of 8 phenomenal data, we further develop a sense of reality As Ino Rossi shows in “The Unconscious in the by imposing larger patterns of understanding. Anthropology,” Lévi-Strauss asserts such a biological Claude Lévi-Strauss has examined in his determinism in a number of his works. 9 Contemporary work being done on the search for anthropological works how this individual way of neurobiological roots of human cognition is very rich, but it constructing reality is intimately related to how an entire seems problematic to tie specifically binary thinking solely to society develops and maintains its worldview. The most biology. If one asserts that human beings think in dualistic common way in which both a person and a community terms for biological reasons, then one would have to provide puts together a structure of reality is through the use of a biological explanation for how we can also go beyond the 7 binary categories. An individual makes sense of the binary and comprehend notions of transitions, spectrums and world by placing things in a series of dual oppositions gray areas. The prevalence of dualism in human worldviews such as day/night, human/animal, living/dead, may be due simply to the fact that dividing things into two man/woman, adult/child, safe/dangerous etc., which leads opposing categories is just the most rudimentary way of organizing things. For recent works on categories, the neurological connection, and theories of embodiment that are highly relevant to this topic, see George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the 7 See for example the chapter entitled “Do Dual Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), Mark Organizations Exist?” in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Anthropology, vol. 1, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (Chicago: University of Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 132–162. Chicago Press, 1987), James B. Ashbrook ed., Brain, Culture For an informative analysis of his ideas on reality formation, & the Human Spirit: Essays from an Emergent Evolutionary including as it relates to Kantian philosophy, see Ino Rossi, Perspective (Lanham: University Press of America, 1993), “The Unconscious in the Anthropology of Claude Lévi- and Anotnio B. Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Strauss,” American Anthropologist 75, 1 (Feb 1973): 20-48. Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: Quill, 2000). 49
in the collapse of order and authority. Such disturbances with is the recently dead body. It is the most vivid and to the established schema appear in the form of entities terrifying example of a thing of uncertain status – no that do not fit into either side of binary categories, longer alive but unlike other inanimate things, undergoing sometimes in a terrifying fashion – e.g. a deformed baby the activity of rapid transformation, changing form, color that disrupts the categories of human/animal, a and smell. It has left the world of the living but has not hermaphrodite, the categories of man/woman, or a solar yet become a stable object of the inanimate world (i.e. a eclipse, the categories of night/day. Certain forms of skeleton, which is a safe, inert object that can be bigotry that is found even in advanced societies are also displayed in a museum or a science classroom). The rooted in emotional reactions toward those who seem corpse is such an unsettling thing because it is in a to cross categorical boundaries. Racists decry transitional state from one part of a binary category to miscegenation that produces mixtures of ethnicities, another and, as Douglas puts it, danger “lies in religious fundamentalists attack homosexuals whose transitional states, simply because transition is neither nature defies traditional notion of gender and sexuality, one state nor the next, it is undefinable.”12 As a result, and anti-Semites look at Jews with suspicion because every society has developed elaborate rituals of disposal they seem to be a people who are simultaneously a part and mourning, to control and to smooth over the of and apart from mainstream Western culture. As the disturbing event. anthropologist Mary Douglas explains On that point, the historian Carlo Ginzburg, in his essay “Representation: The Word, the Idea, the ...the yearning for rigidity is in us all. It is part of our human Thing,” examines the significance of the effigy as an condition to long for hard lines and clear concepts. When artificial representation of the deceased displayed during we have them we have to either face the fact that some funeral rituals, originally used by the Roman nobility.13 realities elude them, or else blind ourselves to the The death of any community member is a disturbing inadequacies of the concepts. event but the demise of a person of the highest status is The final paradox of the search for purity is that it traumatic to a society, especially in the case of a ruler is an attempt to force experience into logical categories of who functioned as the parent, order-giver and, in some non-contradiction. But experience is not amenable and cases, spiritual leader of the people. The funeral of such those who make the attempt find themselves led into a person, therefore, must be elaborate enough to allow contradiction.10 them to not only mourn and express their distress at the possible chaos that could ensue, but also assuage those When a society comes face to face with what emotions by demonstrating that the death is not an end does not fit into the categories that make up its but merely a transition. The spirit of the deceased is worldview, how does it deal with it? Douglas describes moving on to a different plane of existence, but his methods that are negative (“we can ignore, just not power and authority, the “eternal” part of the ruler (as perceive them, or perceiving we can condemn”) and elucidated by Ernst Kantorowicz in his The King’s Two positive (“we can deliberately confront the anomaly and Bodies14), is transferred to a successor who is still among try to create a new pattern of reality in which it has a the living. This is essential for both reassuring the people place”) before outlining five specific ways in which of the continuity of things and maintaining the legitimacy different societies have traditionally handled them.11 of the living power-holders. The difficulty lies in that the First, by introducing an interpretation that explains the more elaborate such a ritual is, the more time it takes to anomaly in “normal” terms; second, by physically complete it, and when the displaying of the dead body to controlling the anomaly (as in destroying and removing the people is an essential part of the ritual, it can be the evidence of its existence); third, by establishing rules problematic in societies that lack an effective embalming of avoiding it (prohibitions); fourth, by labeling it as technique. In other words, the horrifying sight and smell dangerous; and fifth, by assimilating it through its usage in of the decaying corpse itself could undermine the very special rituals. Whether a society decides to ignore, purpose of the ceremony which is to help people come physically control or condemn a categorical anomaly on to terms with the death. the one hand, or accept and assimilate it on the other, As Ginzburg elucidates on the significance of the depends on the specific nature of the culture (its funeral effigy, the object was used to represent that body openness to new ideas and the flexibility of its worldview as a stand-in during the rituals, providing a stable and etc.) and the nature of the anomaly itself (the level of reassuringly clean object of reference. In the case of the danger, conceptual or physical, it poses to that society). A particularly disturbing example of an object of trans-categorical nature that every society must contend 12 Douglas, Purity and Danger, 97. 13 Carlo Ginzburg, “Representation: The Word, the Idea, and the Thing,” in Wooden Eyes: Nine Reflections on Distance, trans. Martin Ryle and Kate Soper (New York: Columbia 10 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of University Press, 2001), 63-78. Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 1966), 14 See Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in 163. Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton 11 Douglas, Purity and Danger, 39-41. University Press, 1957). 50
Roman emperors, two funerals were performed, the first categorical anomalies disturb, frighten and infuriate of the body itself which was quickly cremated, the people, since they question their worldview, some of remains taken to a tomb outside the city, and the second them can also, under certain circumstances, bring of a wax image of the deceased which was displayed for pleasure and a positive sense of awe. This is especially a few days before it was transported to a temple (a true in the case of artificial and artistic representations of sacred space that would have been defiled by the the living which can arouse unease and admiration at the presence of an actual corpse) to be consecrated.15 To same time. There is no doubt that from the most basic further help the people get through the worrisome level of perception to the most elaborate one of building transitional period, there were enactments of elaborate an entire worldview, we absolutely need categories and play-acting involving the effigy. At the funeral of Emperor schema, including the binary pair of the animate and the Septimius Severus, his image was placed on a great bed inanimate. There is, however, a part of us that knows full where it lay for seven days, during which time physicians well how arbitrary and artificial these necessary structures visited it everyday, pretending to examine it and then are and how restrictive they are to our unmediated declaring that he was getting worse, while the effigy of experience of reality. They protect us from chaos, but Emperor Pertinax was laid out on a bier and a youth they also impose rules that keep us from the freedom of stood by to keep the flies away as if the figure were an infinitely protean world. We need order but we also sleeping.16 In a time of worrying uncertainty for a long to be released from it. community, when the body of its leader is undergoing The complete overthrow of the communal the harrowing transformation from a living being to a worldview is, obviously, an unacceptable solution to this dead thing, the effigy played the crucial role of allowing dilemma, so societies develop rituals in which a the people to go through the rituals without having to temporary release from the strictures of the normal can deal directly with the decaying body. be indulged in by the people, but within controlled When Christianity became the dominant religion parameters. So attending a drama or a film in which in fourth century Rome, it brought with it the ancient actors play at experiencing great emotions in extreme, Judaic prohibition against certain representative images, unusual or fantastic situations provides the viewers with as in the second commandment against the making of cathartic opportunities; the traditional European carnival, graven images. The practice of constructing an image of as analyzed by Mikhail Bakhtin, is an occasion when the the deceased, displaying it during the funeral and finally rules governing the social order are put in abeyance and consecrating it in a temple smacked of idolatry, and so it even made fun of; and the modern dance club is a space was discontinued. But what exactly was it about such in which people are allowed to move in certain rhythmic images that disturbed the ancient Jews and early and sexually suggestive manners that are pleasurable, Christians? Was it solely about the concern over which would make them look ridiculous, bizarre or even confusing the thing with what it represents and the offensive in everyday life.17 Such rituals work only if they resulting fall into idolatry, or was there a deeper, more are temporary and remain within a preset boundary, primordial fear at work? This is a question worth since overstepping them can lead to the terror and pursuing since, as I will show, the attractive as well as confusion of total disruption (e.g. a cheering crowd at a disturbing power of the robot is derived from its capacity sporting event turning into a riotous mob in the streets). to go beyond mere representation. The purpose of an image such as an effigy, a statue or a portrait is, of course, to represent things in 3. the world, including a living being. The closer the Given the myriad ideas I have presented here, resemblance to the living, the more successful it is at where does the robot fit in? From what source does it representing it. From a conceptual point of view, draw its power to entrance and to frighten? To put it in however, the more “like” an image is to what it the most general terms: the robot is the ultimate represents, the more dangerous it becomes to the categorical anomaly. Its very nature is a series of viewer. Not only is the beholder liable to confuse it with contradictions and its purpose is to flaunt its own the real being, but the object itself seems to be on verge insoluble paradox. It is an artificial object that acts as if it of coming alive, becoming, like the corpse, yet another is alive; it is made of inert material yet behaves like a category-defying, transitional thing. In other words, we thing of flesh and blood; it is a representation that refuses all know that a work of art such as a statue or a painting to remain a stable version of the represented; it comes is an object, but what is both interesting and unnerving from the inanimate world but has the characteristics of about it is that it seems to be more than just a thing, that an animate creature; and, finally, it is a man-made thing it seems to be alive, or about to come alive. that mimics living beings. What normal representative What complicates this matter is that while images only threaten to do, namely come alive, the robot
15 Ginzburg, “Representation,” 64-66 and 71-72. 17 See Aristotle, Poetics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, 16 Ralph E. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Volume Two, 2316–2340, and Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and Renaissance France (Geneva: Librairie E. Droz, 1960), 148- His World, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana 149. University Press, 1984). 51
seems to actually do. The binary categories of remain still. What is finally significant about the effigy- living/dead, animate/inanimate, creature/object all break automaton story is the audacious yet somehow down in its wake as it moves from one to the other, convincing idea that the power of an automaton is such mesmerizing and terrorizing its beholders by turns. One that if it is used at the right time and manner, it could can always turn and walk away from a still image that arouse such powerful emotions in people and change disturbs, but what if that image follows, speaks and the very course of history. touches? From this conceptual framework, we can finally In 44BCE, after the assassination of Julius Caesar, examine in detail how the automaton causes such the murdered ruler’s ally Marcus Antonius delivered his diverse emotional reactions as amusement, fascination, grand speech at his funeral, a scene made famous by creepiness and terror, and under what circumstances it Shakespeare. The Bard does not recount, however, a switches from one to another. rather peculiar episode from the event related by Appian. When the speech was done 4. someone raised above the bier a wax effigy of Caesar - the Let us start with the most innocuous reaction to body itself, lying on its back on the bier, not being visible. the robot – amusement. Given the fact that the The effigy was turned in every direction by a mechanical automaton is an inherently unstable object of ambiguous device, and twenty-three wounds could be seen, savagely status that could potentially threaten our entire sense of inflicted on every part of the body and on the face. This sight reality, how can it also be a thing of playful fun? As Freud seemed so pitiful to the people that they could bear it no noted, this is unproblematic for children since they live in longer. Howling and lamenting, they surrounded the senate- an animistic universe where the boundary line between house, where Caesar had been killed, and burnt it down, the animate and inanimate is not yet set, a world before and hurried about hunting for the murderers, who had the categorical schema of adult reality. But the sense of slipped away some time previously.18 fun and play can be enjoyed even by adults who find in harmless robots temporary escapes from the strictures of The purpose of the effigy, and the whole funeral the grown-up world. On several academic conferences ritual for that matter, is to allow people to calmly witness in which I gave papers on the history of automata, I the passing of the deceased and to reassure of them of began by presenting a small wind-up toy to the audience, the continuity of things despite the death. On this setting it in motion before them. Far from finding it particular occasion, however, Marcus Antonius did not creepy or frightening, people always reacted with smiles want to calm and reassure the people. He wanted to fill and laughter, some even commenting afterward that the them with grief and anger, thereby arousing them to object was “cute,” as if it were an adorable animal. action against the conspirators. In order to achieve the Henri Bergson, in his 1900 essay “Laughter,” effect, he hid the corpse and turned the effigy of his asserts that the essence of the comic lies in our reaction friend into an automaton. The thing that was supposed to human action and thought that resemble those of a to be stable in its inert solidity became the most unstable machine or “Something mechanical encrusted on the thing there is, getting to its feet and showing off its fatal living.”20 We laugh at people displaying clumsiness, wounds.19 inflexibility, absent or literal-mindedness, because that Despite the fact that this episode was in all makes them appear as if they are nothing but automatic probability imagined by Appian as it is not mentioned in devices incapable of spontaneity, flexibility and change. any other Roman accounts of the funeral, including in Laughter, furthermore, has a social function in that it those of Cicero, Livy, and Seutonius (all of them earlier seeks to correct such behavior, reminding people, than Appian), it provides an interesting insight into the sometimes through ridicule, what it is to be human. As significance of the effigy and the robot as the the central figure of vitalist philosophy, Bergson psychological dimension of the story rings true. What it emphasized that humans are living, supple, evolving demonstrates is that the automaton is the diametric beings of élan vital, even if they live in the modern world opposite of the effigy, or its dark twin. While the latter which is constantly trying to turn them into machines stabilizes the dangerous situation by standing in for the through industrial dehumanization and social conformism. corpse that is going through the harrowing journey from But how does this help us understand why an automaton the world of the living to the world of the dead, shielding can be an amusing thing? the people from its frighteningly ambiguous status, the According to Bergson, laughter is elicited when a automaton deliberately disturbs by pointing to that person acts like a machine when he or she is clearly not liminal nature, playing havoc with people’s notion of what a machine. In other words, the spectacle is of an entity is alive and what is dead, what can move and what must that acts like something it is not and, importantly, does a
18 Appian, The Civil Wars, trans. John Carter (London: Penguin Books, 1996), 149 (book ii, 147). 19 For more on Roman funerals that includes mention of this 20 Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the episode, see Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Cambridge: Comic, trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell Cambridge University Press 1983), 217–226. (Mineola: Dover Publications, 2005), 18. 52
bad job of it. One can apply that logic to the other side under which the automaton arouses terror as opposed of the equation as well - a machine acting as if it is a living to horror, and vice versa? And, if the automaton can be thing, and does it unconvincingly is humorous for the such a disturbing object, why indeed do we keep same reason. So a small toy like the simple spring-driven entertaining ourselves with stories and movies in which device I presented at conferences, is both laughable and they go out of control and seek to destroy us? It seems cute because it seems to be playacting at being a little strange that we enjoy spectacles of our own animal, when we can all see what it really is, an endangerment, the deliberate arousal of our terror and insignificant thing made of metal and plastic. Our horror in the face of the dangerous and the uncanny, as attention is arrested by the device because it tries to in the playacting of the young girl fleeing the robotic cross the boundaries of animate/inanimate, performer I encountered in Santa Monica. What is the natural/artificial, living/dead, but it does such a bad job of nature of this attraction to the terrifying and the it that it ends up reaffirming our normal schema of reality. horrifying? And so we laugh in relief at its failure and domesticate A significant insight into how the same object, the object in terms of childhood playfulness, finding it event or situation can be a source of both terror and amusing and cute. pleasure under different circumstances is found in So the amusement toward the robot has two Edmund Burke’s classic study A Philosophical Enquiry into related sources – first, the minor disturbance to our the Origins of Our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful categorical worldview that is immediately corrected by (1757). Burke notes the oddity of the fact that things the object’s failure to convince us of its living nature, and that pose a danger to our self-preservation causes terror, second, the object’s taking us back to the pleasure of yet when those same things are presented to us with the childhood play, in a world of infinite imaginative possibility of actual harm removed, we derive a peculiar possibilities. From this, the first corollary on the human pleasure out of it that is a specie of the sublime.21 For reaction to the robot can be drawn: instance, we would be terrified if we encountered a wild beast, a murderous lunatic, but we enjoy looking at the I. The less powerful (often but not same animal in a zoo or watching a fictional drama about always because it is small) and more apparently homicide. The crucial element here that turns intense mechanical a robot is, the more amusing it is. fear into the pleasurable sublime is, to use a contemporary phrase, that of controlled parameter. If If the above corollary is right, then presumably we take what frightens and disturbs us to the highest the more powerful and lifelike an robot is, the less degree and secure it in a safe environment, whether amusing and more disturbing. This is true in a general physically in a cage or as make-belief on a stage or on sense, but this idea must be refined through clearer film, it can give us a cathartic thrill. delineations of the emotional responses. When we have The gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, in her 1826 a negative reaction to a robot, the disturbance can occur dialogue “On the Supernatural in Poetry,” extends at two related but distinct levels. The object may arouse Burke’s argument to that of horror as well.22 We fear, which can turn into terror at an extreme point; or it experience the pleasurable sublime when we are also may arouse the feeling of creepiness (the uncanny), presented with things or situations that threaten our which can turn into horror. But what is the difference psychological security, as long as they are placed within between the natures of terror and horror, and what controlled parameters. As noted earlier, categorical arouses one or the other? Terror arises in situations anomalies can be traumatic for the threat that they pose where our physical well-being is threatened, especially to the reality schema of an individual or that of an entire when our very lives are in danger. Horror, on the other community, but they can also be a source of deep hand, occurs in reaction to something that disturbs us fascination. We are drawn to them because a part of us psychologically, as in a categorical anomaly that could yearns to be free of the artificial and arbitrary strictures potentially undermine our grasp of reality. To clarify with concrete examples – if we encounter an armed criminal in a dark alley or a predatory animal in the wild, we would feel terror from the possibility of being hurt or 21 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of killed, but there would be nothing innately uncanny our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (Oxford: Oxford about the experience. Likewise, we may find an entity or University Press, 1990), see especially 119–125 (book iv, an event creepy to the highest degree of horror even if parts iii-x). I am fully aware that the sublime is a historically there’s no physical danger – e.g. a harmless person with a contingent concept that must be understood in the context of eighteenth century aesthetics and thought in the case of deformity that we may find extremely disturbing, or the Burke. I am nevertheless using the idea in a somewhat movement of something obscure in the dark that ahistorical manner here since his notion of what causes suggests a ghost. sublime pleasure is particularly useful in understanding the So what exactly are the circumstances under power of the robot. which the automaton stops being amusing and becomes 22 Ann Radcliffe, “On the Supernatural in Poetry,” in E. J. terrifying or horrifying? What are the circumstances Clery and Robert Miles eds., Gothic Documents: A Sourcebook 1700-1820 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 168. 53
of our culturally imposed worldview, harboring a secret at some vertiginous speed, and barely murmuring scarcely desire to escape into the chaotic realm of infinite humming an audible warning to stand a hair’s-breadth possibilities. In cultures that are willing to accommodate further for respect for power - while it would not wake the the anomalous to a certain extent, allowing the people baby lying close against its frame. Before the end, one occasional experiences of the world beyond without began to pray to it; inherited instinct taught the natural having them fall completely into anarchy and madness, expression of man before a silent and infinite force.24 the solution is the enactment of rituals in which dangerous entities are placed in strictly bounded zones The religious element at the end of this passage where they can be gazed upon and interacted with, while is of particular interest since the sublime is often preventing them from unleashing their dangerous power expressed in terms of the otherworldly and the into the community. supernatural. By applying this idea, we can theorize that what causes us terror or horror can be transformed into a III. The technological sublime turns into source of the pleasurable sublime when placed within terror the moment the powerful machine appears controlled parameters, because that allows us to come to have gone out of human control. face to face with the vastness, the danger, and the chaos of the world and existence itself without the possibility of As with a tiger that escapes from a zoo or a physical or psychic harm. The pleasure comes from the natural phenomenon like an earthquake or a volcanic feeling of temporary escape from the often constricting eruption that can actually endanger people, the loss of and frustrating strictures of normal, everyday life, the the controlled parameter effectively cancels the safety and predictability of which is made possible by the pleasurable sublime. So the awe we might feel before maintenance of limitations on possibilities. So the lethal the machinery of an aircraft, a locomotive, or a factory power of the tiger behind the bars of a zoo provides us turns into terror the moment we realize that due to with a glimpse of the awesome world of the wild, while a some malfunction they are no longer under the control horror movie about the appearance of ghosts teases us of their human masters and are operating under what with suggestions of a supernatural realm. Since most of seems like their own will with the possibility of causing us us have an interest in living in the mundane world of harm. civilized society, the pleasurable sublime works under the IV. The more life-like a robot, the greater condition that its subject remains within a controlled the sense of the uncanny sublime. parameter, as an escaped tiger or the actual appearance of a ghost would cause terror and horror respectively, Even if a robot poses no physical danger to the perhaps to the point of utter panic and madness. viewer, our level of uneasiness toward it increases as it From this idea, a few more corollaries can be looks and acts more and more like a living creature, drawn about the human reaction to the automaton: especially a human being. This is because the increased proficiency at the mimicry of life turns the object into a II. The more powerful (often but not liminal entity, posing an ever greater danger to our reality always because it is bigger) a machine, the less schema based on the categories of the amusing it is and more sublime. animate/inanimate, natural/artificial, and living/dead. What allows it to be a source of the pleasurable sublime We feel awe rather than amusement in the face or the sublime uncanny, without falling into horror, is the of a great, powerful machine, at its locomotive strength, controlled parameter which is defined in this case by our efficiency, and relentless productivity, the same way as at certain knowledge it is indeed a machine, no matter how the sight of a grand view of nature.23 One of the most good it is at pretending to be a living being. This famous descriptions of this feeling can be found in the understanding allows us to enjoy its spectacle as it frees “The Dynamo and the Virgin” chapter of Henry Adams’s us temporarily from the conceptual boundary line that autobiography that describes his experience at the great separates us from the inanimate, inorganic world. So hall of dynamos in the Great Exposition in Paris. even if we feel the creepiness before the moving, talking As he grew accustomed to the great gallery of thing, we are captivated by it through the sublime awe at machines, he began to feel its mimetic effectiveness. the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early V. The uncanny sublime loses its Christians felt the Cross. The planet itself seemed less pleasurable aspect and turns into horror when a impressive, in its old-fashioned, deliberate, annual or daily human being turns out to be a robot or vice versa revolution, than this huge wheel, revolving within arm’s-length in an unexpected way.
23 Kant’s notion of the sublime deals mainly with the sense of vastness found in nature that seems to intimate notions of infinity and eternity. See Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard (New York: Prometheus 24 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Oxford: Books, 2000), 101–150. Oxford University Press, 1999), 318. 54
With no basis of safety from which to enjoy the trans- peak of rapport as closely as possible for maximum categorical (i.e. the loss of the conceptual controlled comfort level in the interaction with people, without parameter), the threat to one’s sense of reality is at its falling into the uncanny valley. maximum. This may last but an instant, as in the case of This is, obviously, a highly provocative theory for a man who is frightened by a statue that moves the purpose of this essay, but experts currently involved before understanding that what he is facing is really an in robotics and cognition research have pointed to some automaton or a person who was pretending to be a of its problems. Karl MacDorman and Hiroshi Ishiguro statue (the re-establishment of the controlled parameter have revealed that Mori’s ideas were based on of the knowledge of what the entity really is). theoretical extrapolations from anecdotal experiences Nevertheless, in that particular moment of the with robots, mannequins and prosthetic limbs, not on unexpected, it is the sense of complete uncertainty that empirical evidence from controlled testing, while David brings about the shock. One can speculate that when Hanson has questioned the rather simplistic notion of we are able produce perfect robotic simulacra of living “realism” in human resemblance in the study.26 In fact, at beings and sentient artificial intelligence, there will be the time that Mori published the essay, there was no those who, from this sense of horror, regard them as robot whose resemblance to a human being was so abominations and react violently toward them, while perfect that one could verify whether it does pull itself others will be forced to adjust their definition of life and out of the uncanny valley. The right end of the graph, consciousness in order to assimilate them into their then, is purely speculative, Mori’s use of the traditional worldviews. Japanese bunraku puppet being problematic since, as the The various emotional reactions toward author admits, the object is seen in a theater at a machinery in general and the automaton in particular sufficient distance to make its size and deficiency in under different circumstances can be charted in the table lifelikeness irrelevant. Furthermore, there’s a lack of (1) clarity in the meaning of the term “rapport.” It seems to denote comfort level, as Mori claims that what happens in the uncanny valley is that we notice flaws in the 5. machine’s attempt at human likeness, which stand out to In 1970, a Japanese robotics expert named Masahiro give us a feeling of the uncanny, as when one takes Mori published the article “The Uncanny Valley,” in someone’s hand and realizes through its hardness and which he theorized that people’s feeling of “rapport” coldness that it is a prosthetic. There is no explanation, with machines increases as they becomes more lifelike – however, of why at a certain level of resemblance to life, our affection toward toy robots rising as they better flaws should suddenly become sources of discomfort, resemble and mimic life.25 At a point in this rising level when they were unproblematic in less lifelike machines. of rapport that is tied to resemblance to the living, Mori Perhaps the cause of the uncanny is not in the flaws, but asserts, there is a sudden and precipitous drop in the the conceptual uncertainty that they cause in the comfort level as we find uncanny the very robots that perceiving mind. pretend to be living beings so well. In other words, the In a recent study to verify Mori’s findings in an more lifelike a robot the more at ease we feel with it, empirical fashion, a group of Indonesian subjects (less but when it reaches a certain level of being too lifelike, likely to be familiar with robots than Westerners or we suddenly find it creepy and horrifying. Then, as the Japanese) were shown a series of photographs that robot reaches an even greater level of perfection in the morphed from a clearly mechanical robot, to a robot mimicry of humanity, the rapport level goes back up, resembling a human being, to a true human being.27 The describing behind it what he calls the “uncanny valley.” participants were then asked to rate the photographs in As expressed in graph (1) terms of human likeness, familiarity, and eeriness. Based on this theory, Mori advises robot makers that when making their products lifelike, try to hit the first
26 MacDorman and Ishiguro, “The Uncanny Advantage,” 304, and David Hanson, “Exploring the Aesthetic Range for Humanoid Robots,” found online at: 25 The article was originally published in Japanese in Energy http://www.androidscience.com/proceedings2006/6Hanson20 7, 4 (1970): 33-35. An English translation by Karl F. 06ExploringTheAesthetic.pdf MacDorman and Takashi Minato can be found online at 27 In the case of the male version, they used photographs of http://www.androidscience.com/theuncannyvalley/proceeding the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, who wrote some of s2005/uncannyvalley.html the most interesting android stories including Do Androids Originally the Japanese word “shinwakan” was translated Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) that the film Blade Runner as “familiarity” but MacDorman recently changed it to (1982) was based on. As with the Mori graph, Karl “rapport” as the closer English expression of what Mori MacDorman provided the graphs from his and Ishiguro’s meant. essay, “The Uncanny Advantage.” 55
BEYOND WITHIN CONTROLL ED PARAMETER CONTROLLED PARAMETER PHYSICAL
(Controlled A machine that is A powerful machine A powerful machine parameter defined inherently harmless and that is potentially that is dangerous and by the knowledge interesting because it is dangerous but it is it can cause harm at that a machine can particularly useful or under control so that any moment because cause no harm beautiful – it can cause no harm it is no longer under because it is under - human control – control)
FASCINATION SUBLIME TERROR CONCEPTUAL
(Controlled A robot that imitates life A robot that does an A robot that does parameter defined but utterly fails to excellent job of such a good of by the knowledge convince that it is really imitating life though imitating life that we that the robot is alive - we can tell that it is cannot tell (even if not really alive, no not really alive – temporarily) if it is a matter how good it living being or not – is at pretending to be)
UNCANNY AMUSEMENT SUBLIME HORROR Table (1)
Graph (1) 56
The following two graphs, using a male and a female a robot that can cause real uneasiness and horror image, are the results: through its animate behavior. The robot is more akin to
A few things stand out in this study. As is clear on the a zombie, a living mummy or a vampire on that level as it left side of the graphs, that which is unfamiliar is not crosses the categories of animate/inanimate, living/dead, necessarily uncanny. Contrary to Mori’s theory, the and so threatens our reality schema in a particularly viewers did not find the least humanlike robots eerie at frightening way. So when a person finds the object all, even though they were moderately unfamiliar with particularly eerie, it is often expressed in terms of as them. Second, instead of greater resemblance to human what one might feel if faced with an undead creature. beings causing a steady rise in the sense of familiarity, there is a noticeable dip in the middle in the transitional stage between the robot and the human. Also, most CONCLUSION significantly, what we have here is an eerie peak, as If the source of both the fascination and discomfort with opposed to the uncanny valley, precisely in that middle- the automaton lies in its ambiguous nature that turns it range when there is a maximum level of uncertainty into a category-defying object that threatens our normal about the nature of the thing observed, when we are in schema of reality, one must question whether the the liminal zone between the artificial and the natural. dynamic of moving from the amusing and the sublime to So it seems apparent here that it is indeed uncertainty the uncanny and the terrifying, through the boundary of a that is the operative concept in the arousal of eeriness. controlled parameter, can be applied to any entity of Mori also speculated in his paper that the feeling uncertain status. I believe that any object, event or of uncanny may have something to do with death, that situation that disrupts our normal worldview commands flaws we detect in the humanlike robot remind us of a attention, but with differing levels of emotional reaction cold, still corpse. MacDorman and Ishiguro explore this that is determined by how much of a threat it poses to point further, questioning whether androids are the schema as a whole. The discovery of a new specie frightening because their cadaver-like appearance of animal or plant that does not fit into the established reminds us of our own mortality.28 Given the conceptual scheme of zoological and botanical organization is likely framework I have provided, however, I would like to to cause wonder but not horror, since scientists can assert something different than the corpse-like nature of assimilate them by simply creating a new category or the robot. I believe the robot’s connection to death is adjusting the method of categorization, whereas the not that the former reminds us of our mortality through appearance of an apparently non-terrestrial or its resemblance to a dead body, but that it evokes in our supernatural entity could be traumatic. Objects or minds dead things doing things they should not be doing events that seem to cause the greatest emotional – namely move and talk and otherwise act like living reactions seem to be those that have directly to do with creatures. A wax statue can be creepy because of its the nature of human identity itself. Because a robot is a close resemblance to a person, but not to the extent of specifically human-made object, as opposed to one found in nature, and one that mimics life, it suggests all kinds of essential and disturbing questions about what 28 MacDorman and Ishiguro, “The Uncanny Advantage,” exactly a human being is, raising doubts about our own 312-313. 57
place in the binaries of animate/inanimate, spiritual/material, soul/body. Are we also mere machines consisting of matter functioning according to a preset program, or is there a non-mechanical and non-material aspect of us that is the essence of our humanity? What complicates the matter is that despite the prevalent nature of binary thinking in human culture, whether rooted in biology or not, we are certainly not condemned to it as we are capable of understanding the arbitrary nature of its construction and to question our own prejudices that are based on them. So I can grasp the ideas that at a certain level of reality the distinction between matter and energy breaks down, that there is a wide variety of sexual orientations that are equally natural, and that varying but legitimate historical narratives can be written from differing perspectives. Likewise, an entire culture, given the right circumstances and influences, can become more open-minded and willing to critically examine its own values and prejudices without falling into confusion and anarchy. In fact, such a society is likely to become stronger and more enduring since its flexibility would allow it to handle change, contingency and novelty much better than a culture holding onto a rigid worldview.
Minsoo Kang is an assistant professor of European history at the University of Missouri - St. Louis. He is the co-editor of Visions of the Industrial Age, 1830-1914: Modernity and the Anxiety of Representation in European Culture (Ashgate, 2008) and the short story collection Of Tales and Enigmas (Prime Books, 2006). His full-length book on the history of the automaton idea, Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination, is forthcoming in 2010. 58
D AVID BOWEN: ON
G ROWTH AND
F ORM
David Bowen is interested in the outcomes that occur when machines interact with the natural world. He has exhibited his work internationally and is currently Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.
Text by Scott Stulen Questions by Giovanni Aloi
David Bowen Growth Rendering Device, aluminum, electronics, pea plant, hydroponic solution (dimensions variable) 2007 David Bowen
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hroughout history, artists and scientists have Kemp’s observations. How do the materials, processes studied growth, the process of natural forms and and environmental forces shape the forms created in the T biological processes, making visual notations of natural world and in the artist’s studio? Does a concern their observations. One objective of these careful studies for “truth in materials” lends itself to interactive, kinetic is to identify emerging patterns and search for or time-based work? predictable forms or outcomes. Scottish biologist, Echoing Thompson and Kemp’s enthrallment mathematician, and classics scholar D’Arcy Wentworth with process and structure in nature, David Bowen’s Thompson explored these concepts in his influential work is concerned with aesthetics resulting from 1917 book On Growth and Form, which put forward that interactive systems. Bowen creates mechanisms to physics and mechanics are primary determinates of produce drawings, sounds, and activities based on biological structure. Thompson’s theories are in environmental inputs, which comment on the opposition to Charles Darwin, providing an alternative to relationship between the viewer, technology and nature. natural selection through geometry and mathematics. Bowen seeks to mimic or document natural responses Thompson offered numerous examples in support, such and processes through interactive kinetic constructions as jellyfish whose bodies mimic liquid dropped into rather than static representations. In keeping with viscous fluid, or phyllotaxis, the arrangement of leaves on scientific study there is an intentional transparency of plant stems whose precise growth pattern conform to both material and function in Bowen’s kinetic sculptures. mathematical Fibonacci sequences. The inner workings are left exposed–wires, circuit Thompson also recognized that the tendency boards, gears and motors function without a protective towards self-organization due to physical forces and skin, revealing their role as the machine labors. Bowen’s chemistry is not isolated–often factors work concurrently work captures the viewer’s attention through the use of towards a state of balance. Thompson writes: technology while attempting to expose the equaling complex mechanisms, cycles, and phenomena in our “To one who has watched the potter at his wheel, it is plain natural environment. Bowen’s choice of materials (metals that the potter’s thumb, like the glass blower’s blast of air, and plastics) attempts to heighten the contrast between depends for its efficacy upon the physical properties of the the natural and artificial, while acknowledging the medium on which it operates, which for the time being is increasing difficulty of discerning this difference in essentially a fluid. The cup and the saucer, like the tube and contemporary culture. the bulb display (in their simple and primitive forms) Growth Rendering Device is a kinetic installation beautiful surfaces of equilibrium as manifested under certain based on the rate of growth, cell structure and limiting conditions. They are neither more nor less than absorption of a biological specimen. Nestled within a glorified “splashes,” formed slowly, under conditions of robotic armature, the daily growth of a plant is captured restraint, which enhance or reveal their mathematical and documented over the length of the exhibition. The symmetry.”1 vertical armature attached to the gallery wall contains the plant, scanning equipment, and an inkjet printer. A Therefore, form and aesthetics are guided by outside growth light and nutrient-rich hydroponic solution forces and the inherent properties of materials. In a nurture the plant throughout the length of the exhibition. response to Thompson’s observation University of Once every 24 hours the scanner maps the visual data Oxford art historian Martin Kemp writes in his essay from the plant while the printer records the information Doing what comes naturally: morphogenesis and the limits as a rasterized inkjet “drawing” on a long scroll of paper of the genetic code, “It seems to me that there is a spooling behind the device, progressing down the gallery fundamental visual insight here… for the understanding wall, documenting the growth (and possible death) of of morphogenesis in the work of those artists who have the plant. been particularly concerned with truth to materials in Through its precise mechanical systems Bowen’s terms of dynamic process rather than engineering Growth Rendering Device objectivity records its biological statics… the dialogue between the behavior of materials subject without the artist’s interferences and bias. in nature and the conscious remodeling and However the hand of the artist is not absent, instead it is appropriation of the underlying processes in science and created in collaboration with the technology and shaped art.”2 Intriguing questions arise from Thompson and by artificial and natural forces. Like the work of the 60
David Bowen Growth Rendering Device, aluminum, electronics, pea plant, hydroponic solution (dimensions variable) 2007 David Bowen
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potter or the glass blower the outcome of Growth things as efficiently as my knowledge and programming Rendering Device is variable. Even within the seemly rigid skills allow. I understand that my approach might not be boundaries of biological growth and finely tuned efficient in the mind of an engineer. But then again I do technology, subtle interventions–human or otherwise– not think that engineers would create the systems I do in can have dramatic consequences. the first place.
1 Thompson, D’Arcy Wentworth, On Growth and Form, How did your interest for robotics, kinetics and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917; living beings developed? abridged ed. J. T. Bonner, 1961. P. 238 As an undergrad in sculpture at Herron School of Art I 2 Kemp, Martin “Doing what comes naturally: was very much interested in steel fabrication. I slowly morphogenesis and the limits of the genetic code,” Art began to explore adding some kinetic elements to the Journal, March 22, 1996 steel pieces. I chose to attend the University of Minnesota for graduate school to work with my mentor, We met with David Bowen to discuss his work with Guy Baldwin, who is an expert at creating kinetic robotic drawings. sculpture with analogue electronics. He opened up a world of timing motors and micro-switches for me. From In the essay ‘On Growth and Form’ Scott Stulen this experience the possibilities for my kinetic work really asks the following questions: “How do the began to develop. Because of the guidance of Professor materials, processes and environmental forces Baldwin’s expertise the technical concerns of how to shape the forms created in the natural world and make a piece work were not as dominant and I began to in the artist’s studio? Does a concern for “truth think more in depth about the ideas behind the pieces. I in materials” lends itself to interactive, kinetic or began to incorporate more natural materials and time-based work?” What would your personal movements that were contrasted with highly machined answers to these be? mechanisms and components. One of the many advantages of being a graduate Yes, definitely in two ways: student at a major research university is the fact that When I start a new piece, I begin by constructing the there are many very smart people to work with, not only device and then I program it and debug it. Throughout in the art department but in other areas of research as this process I often have a specific idea in mind of how well. I sought out a mechanical engineering expert and the finished piece is going to behave. Once a work is set was introduced to Will Durfee. Professor Durfee is an up I try not to interfere with it (I admit this is sometimes expert in the use of programmable micro-controllers. difficult) but if I can, I allow the piece to act as it will. These devices are tiny computers that can be plugged While a new piece is running, more often than not, into a laptop or desktop computer and be programmed unexpected things happen. These unexpected behaviors in an almost infinite number of ways. Micro-controllers can sometimes be the most interesting aspect of a piece. are often used in robotics and have onboard memory Our conceptions about robots tell us that they and a series of pins that can be programmed to be inputs are supposed to behave in systematic predictable ways. or outputs. Inputs can take in information form sensors Bugs in the system or design flaws can cause different like light, motion and inferred detectors as well as results than what we intend. Indeed, these bugs can analogue switches and meters. Outputs can control sometimes be extremely frustrating and especially when electro-mechanics such as servo-motors, solenoids, lights they cause things to break. But if you are lucky and sound emitting devices. My introduction to unexpected behaviors can add a very interesting layer to microcontrollers really opened up the possibilities for a piece. time based, reactive and interactive devices. This gave When I construct a piece I use materials that are me the ability to increase the complexity of possible most appropriate for the function I would like the piece outcomes for a piece. to perform. Aluminum and plastics are used because they are easier to machine. When I construct a device, I In ‘Fly Drawing Device’, a mechanical arm do not design it as an engineer would. I attempt to do produces drawings based on the subtle 62
David Bowen Fly Drawing Device, aluminum, electronics, plastic, flies, (dimensions variable) 2007 David Bowen
movements of houseflies. When flies enter a a system including the flies, the drawings and the robotic small chamber sensors detect their movements. A device that produces the drawings in reaction to the micro-controller articulates a drawing arm in real movements of the flies. It is my hope that the viewer time based on the fly's movements. When a fly is physically engage with the system. no longer detected in the chamber the paper scrolls over and the device waits until a new fly The sensors that detect the flies function based on light enters the chamber to begin another drawing. and of course need to be extremely sensitive in order to How do audiences react to works of this type? detect their subtle movements. Each sensor corresponds to a direction for the drawing arm. The left sensor tells The reactions to ‘fly drawing device” range from people the arm to rotate left, the right sensor tells the arm to who are impressed by the technical system to people rotate right, the up sensor tells the arm to lift up off the who appreciate the absurdity to people who think the page and the down sensor tells the arm to push down piece is ridiculous. I have heard critiques such a “my on the page. The sensors do not merely function as three year old nephew could draw better than that”… I switches telling the arm to fully move in the respective kind-of hope so. directions. They are much more sensitive than that. Some of my work has been described as an They collect numeric data based on the density of the “absurdist approach to the translation of scientific shadows cast by the flies. This data is scaled and sent in technology into art” Eleanor Heartney Art in America real-time to the servo-motors via the microcontroller. April 2008 The idea of houseflies producing drawings as The servos control the direction of the arm. If a large fly art is an absurd notion. The drawings on their own have or many flies go into the chamber and move about, the little meaning without the context of how they were shadows they cast tend to be more dense thus the produced therefore they are not meant to be stand- number sent to the servo is larger. This means the alone art objects. The piece is intended to be viewed as movement of the arm is more extreme therefore the 63
drawings produced during this time tend to have very small because the plant is still very small. As the plant extreme gestures. When a small fly enters and moves grows the scale of the drawings also grow. As the plant around the movements of the drawing arm tend to be continues to thrive the drawings reflect this. But much more subtle and thus the drawings are much more eventually the pea plant begins to whither and the subtle. drawings become thin. The changes in the drawings are more subtle at this time because the plant remains erect. In your practice you equally seem to engage with As the plant dies, the mechanism continues on drawing animals as well as plants. What challenges are what is left of it. In some ways it is a sort of lament. presented by working with one or the other? ‘Swarm’, is an autonomous roaming device whose When working with living organisms it adds another movements are determined by houseflies housed technical layer to the process. I have to learn to care for inside the device itself. The chamber where they them. The plants and animals that I have worked with live contains food, water and light to keep them are in some ways similar in their needs. Houseflies arrive warm but also sensors that detect the changing in pupae form. The pupae are kept warm in a container. light patterns produced by their movements. The In roughly a week the pupae encase and the adult flies sensors send the light data to an on-board emerge. The flies need to be kept warm and fed a microcontroller, which in turn activate the motors mixture of powered milk and sugar weekly and watered moving the device in relation to the movements daily. With “growth rendering device” I use pea plants. I of the flies. From a number of perspectives, the begin by putting the seeds in foam root-cube. I give them work reminds me of ‘Augmented Fish Reality’, the water and keep them warm and in roughly a week I have interactive installation controlled by Siamese small pea plants. The plants need to be kept under light fighting fish that Ken Rinaldo produced in 2000; and fed water and hydroponic solution. There too, the fish could make the robotic structures in which they were housed move, whilst What is the difference between animals and being also able to establish visual contact with plants in your work? one another even over considerable distances. How different or similar do you think Swarm is to I would say that the timing of the response is the biggest ‘Augmented Fish Reality’? difference between the two. A swarm of houseflies responds in real-time, whereas a plant takes much longer I have only a superficial familiarity with ‘Augmented Fish to affect the mechanical system that it is interacting with. Reality’. I would say that swarm is similar to Ken’s piece As systems I can see similarities in the life-cycles in that it uses living organism to control a robotic device. of both pea plants and houseflies. The flies encase from ‘Swarm’ was commissioned by Exit Art in 2008 their pupae shells and pea-plant seeds sprout. The plant for an exhibition titled “Brainwave”. It was designed grows and thrives while the more the flies encase the around the idea that the flies are the ‘brain’ of the device. swarm grows and thrives. The plant begins to wither and The device is roughly 60” tall and was intended to be the swam becomes thin. Eventually both die off. somewhat figurative. At least in the way it physically The mechanism’s that utilize the plant or flies occupies the space. So the flies live in a kind of head of also go through a sort of cycle. With ‘swarm’ when the the figure. The device is programmed to move through flies are still in pupae form the device does not move. As the space based on the movements of the swarm. The they begin to encase and move around the chamber the sensors that detect the flies are similar to those robotic device begins to subtly move. When all of the described earlier in ‘fly drawing device’. In this case there flies are encased and moving around the chamber the are six sensors feeding data in real-time to three motors device is very active making extreme erratic movements. controlling three omni-directional wheels. If the density As the flies begin to die off the movements become of flies is greater in a particular direction the device will more subtle again. And when the flies all die the device move that direction at a velocity relative to the density of does not move at all. the swarm. Agitated flies will cause the device to make When ‘growth rendering device’ begins a new erratic, jerky movements. A calm swarm slowly wanders cycle the inkjet drawings it produces are of course very about the space or sits stationary. This piece was 64
David Bowen Growth Rendering Device, aluminum, electronics, pea plant, hydroponic solution (dimensions variable) 2007 David Bowen
described as “a slightly demented visualization of how ’50 drones’ was described as “a subtle comment on the brain converts electrical impulses transmitted by human group behavior” in 2003 by Lindsey Westbrook neurons into directions to the body” Eleanor Heartney of the in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Art in America April 2008. Flies rely heavily on their vision to navigate a In ‘Growth Rendering Device’ a system provides space and avoid potential dangers. When a person light and food in the form of hydroponic solution approaches the piece or waves their hand in proximity for a plant. The plant reacts to the device by to the flies it often causes the swarm to become agitated growing. The device in-turn reacts to the plant by and hence the device becomes agitated. Eventually the producing a rasterized inkjet drawing of the plant flies begin to die-off and so the movements of the device every twenty-four hours. After a new drawing is become more and more subdued as the flies thin out. In produced the system scrolls the roll of paper this way there is sort-of a life-cycle to the piece approximately four inches so a new drawing can I suppose the biggest difference between be produced during the next cycle. This system is ‘Augmented Fish Reality’ and ‘swarm’ is the fact that allowed to run indefinitely and the final outcome ‘swarm’ functions based on the movements of the is not predetermined. Aside from the utterly collective rather than a single organism. This collective fascinating marking, documenting the usually movement and reactivity has connections to one of my unnoticed movements and growth of plants, what earlier works tilted ’50 drones’. This installation consists else do we learn about plants through the work? of 50 aluminum and pvc units connected to 10' tethers. Each unit moves independently as they displace and I learned that plants often behave in very systematic arrange one another in random and unpredictable predictable ways. On the surface it seems that natural patterns. I guess it’s sort of a self-arranging composition. systems and organisms are often thought of as random 65
and erratic. With this piece I noticed that the pea plants I aesthetics that result from interactive, reactive was using grew in a very systematic and compositionally and generative processes. How did this interest uniform way layering one stem then leaf after another at surface and what considerations have you been it reaches for the light. The next section is proportionally able to draw from your recent research? smaller then the previous. Plants are amazing engineers. They also excel in the art-making department. I feel the My interest in robotics led to an interest in setting up formal compositions and arrangements of leaves and systems with a certain degree of autonomy. My current stems in perfect proportion is quite beautiful. There is of artist statement is: course a history of artist’s attempts to recreate or Interaction between individuals becomes the represent natural systems but in my opinion nothing cause of the whole and at the same time is caused by does it better than nature itself. the whole. My work is concerned with aesthetics that result from interactive, reactive and generative processes. How are your works involving organic matter kept I produce systems, devices and situations that are set in functioning during the installation period? motion to create drawings, movements, compositions, sounds and objects based on their perception of and With “growth rendering device” the system is interaction with the space they occupy. Acting upon completely automated. The plant has a grow light and a their own limited "free will", the systems I construct can container of hydroponic solution. Every 24 hours a new orient themselves or respond to their surroundings drawing is produced. It takes the device anywhere based on various stimuli. The work is a result of a between 10 minutes to an hour to produce the drawing combination of a particular event and the residue left depending on the height progress of the plant. When the after the event. Each individual object affects the others, drawing is finished a pump will top-off the plant’s beaker as they affect it. In this way interaction defines existence. with hydroponic solution. A water level sensor tells the The potential for complexity within physical pump to stop when the beaker is full. After this the computing gives many possibilities for a variety of paper scrolls over roughly 4 inches and the system waits outcomes. I suppose I am interested in the potential 24 hours to do another drawing. This piece was ways that machines can behave like living systems and exhibited from May through August at the Rochester Art living systems can behave like machines. My early desire Center in 2006. Two thirds of the way through the to push the perceived contrast between the two lead to exhibition the curator called to inform me that the plant the understanding that living organisms can behave in was dying. He wondered if we should replace it with a very systematic almost mechanical ways while at the new plant and start a new scroll of paper. We decided same time mechanisms can behave in more organic to allow the system to continue cycling. By the end of ways. the exhibition the system produced a drawing of the plant as it grew, thrived, withered, and died. The entire How important is the level of interactivity in your life cycle of the plant was illustrated on a fifty-foot scroll. work and which if your finished projects When pieces that involve houseflies are capitalizes on it more than others? To what exhibited, the gallery will have a list of care and result? maintenance duties to perform. With these pieces the flies need fresh water on a daily basis. I have found the Yes, I would say that different pieces use interactivity to most efficient way to kill flies is to neglect to give them different degrees. I also think that sometimes there is water. They also require food (a 50/50 mixture of confusion between interactive and reactive systems. I powered milk and sugar) every week. The flies will live would say the most recent and best example of an up to 40 days in their chamber. Depending on the interactive piece that I have done is “remote sonar circumstances this fact also adds another potential layer drawing device” This device was a multinational tele- to these pieces. It gives them a life-cycle as I described presence robotic installation installed at Laboral Centro previously. As the flies die off the mechanical systems de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón-Asturias, Spain and that respond to them slow and stop. the Visualization and Digital Imaging Lab, University of Minnesota. This installation consisted of a drawing arm Your practice is currently concerned with and sonar sensor array installed in Minnesota and a 66
David Bowen Swarm, plastic, aluminum, houseflies, electronics 60” x 20” x 20”, 2008 David Bowen
drawing arm and sonar sensor array installed in Spain. In many occasions you have been referred to as a The information gathered by the sensors was sent via the ‘sculptor’. Do you agree? internet to the drawing arm in the opposite location. Therefore, the arm in Spain produced drawings based on I received a bachelors and masters degree both with an the inputs it received from the sensor array in Minnesota emphasis in sculpture. So I am definitely coming at it with and vise-versa. The public was encouraged to participate a sculpture background. If I needed to classify what I do I at both locations producing gestured drawings halfway guess you could call it sculpture. The term sculpture around the world. With this system there is a give and seems to be more and more of a catch-all. The definition take from person to person, between person and of what is called sculpture is very broad. I think that what machine, as well as from machine to machine. is defined as sculpture retains a strong connection to the physical world but students and artists no longer have to I would consider a piece like ‘phototropic drawing be defined or constrained by a particular material like device’ as reactive. This piece consists of a small robot steel, wood or marble. In my studio practice, I use that is solar powered and attracted to the most intense whatever material most efficiently and effectively light source. In this system installations of lights in various performs the function that I need. I would hope that my configurations are set up. As the robot moves from light work could just be seen as art. to light a small piece of charcoal tracks its journey. Lights are connected to timers and arranged in various patterns What are you currently working on? causing the robot to create different compositions. With this system the phototropic device simply responds to I am currently working on a device that will print a 3D the stimuli of the lights. There is no give and take. model of a plant every 24 hours as it grows. The system will use a laser scanner that moves in sync with a special 67
printer head that extrudes tiny beads of ABS plastic. The device will print the plant in layers slowly building up until the model is complete. As with “growth rendering device” this system will provide light and hydroponic solution for the plant as it grows and the final outcome will not be predetermined. In the future, I would also like to pursue another piece that utilizes houseflies. This will be similar to a recent work titled ‘flylight’ link This device uses five sensors to detect flies as they move about a chamber similar to ‘fly drawing device’. Each of the five sensors activates a corresponding light which projects in a direction relative to the direction of the movement of the flies. The idea is that the flie’s subtle movements are amplified and projected into the space. In its current form the piece uses standard spot light bulbs to do this. These lights do a fairly good job of filling a smaller space, but I would like to attempt the installation using high powered search-lights which when activated by the movements of the flies could be projected out into a city.
David Bowen is an exhibiting studio artist and Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. He received his BFA degree from Herron School of Art in Indianapolis in 1999 and his MFA degree from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in 2004. His work has recently been featured in Artbots: the robot talent show at the Eyebeam Atelier in New York, NY, Good Work at Dangerous Curve in Los Angles, CA, Robotix at PASS-Parc d’Adventure Scientifiques in Brussels, Belgium and Art of Machines at the Rxgallery blasthaus, San Francisco, CA. He has attended the Sculpture Space residency in Utica, NY and the Hungarian Multicultural Center residency in Balatonfured, Hungary and will received a fellowship to attend Vermont Studio Center and The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art.
3rd Floor Artist Series Credits
The Rochester Art Center continually strives to engage the community members of all ages in the creation, contemplation, and appreciation of the visual arts. As a non-collecting institution, the Art Center focuses its efforts on presenting temporary exhibitions throughout the year featuring These exhibitions are made possible, in part by a grant provided by the established local, national, and international artists, as well as “emerging” Minnesota State Arts Board through an appropriation by the Minnesota artists from diverse backgrounds working in a variety of media. Legislature and, in part, by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Rochester Art Center is a recipient of a McKnight Foundation Award In 2004, the Rochester Art Center initiated the 3rd Floor Emerging Artist and a Bush Foundation Grant. Major sponsorship for the 3rd Floor Series—an exhibition program dedicated to promising young artists Emerging Artist Series is provided by the Jerome Foundation. The working in the state of Minnesota. Since its inception, the series has Rochester Art Center is also a recipient of support from the city of reflected shifting trends in contemporary artistic practice and production, Rochester. and has helped to facilitate the creation of new bodies of work in a variety of media including photography, installation, sound, painting, For more information please visit www.dwbowen.com drawing, sculpture, and film. Now entering our third year, the 3rd Floor Emerging Artist Series continues to support emerging artists and to David Bowen was interviewed by Antennae in Winter 2008 provide a dedicated forum for the exhibition of exciting new work. Antennae
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B JOERN SCHUELKE
A ND MECHANIC
D IVERSITY
Bjoern Schuelke designs objects that playfully transform live spatial energy into active responses in sculptural form. Born form a world of stuffed animals, spaceships, unusual scientific instruments and robots, some of these pieces also employ alternative energy sources– and speak powerfully to the environmental concerns of today. Text and Questions by Julien Salaud
t seems that during the Biennale of Electronic Arts Objects realized between 2004 and 2005 (these are Perth (it happened in Australia in 2004), the viewers made of solar cells, motors, electronic, brass and car I of the exhibition had a lot of fun with one of Bjoern paint). These machines subvert the idea of interaction by Schuelke’s artwork: Nervous. This installation was made of changing its interlocutor as the artwork moves in a group of interactive audiokinetic objects, created by the reaction to the sun, broadening the domain of German artist between 1999 and 2003 with various interactivity from humans to the environment. materials: Theremins, amplifiers, servomotors, What is particularly fascinating in Bjoern loudspeakers, plush, wood, Styrofoam. Schuelke’s work is the diversity presented by his How does Nervous work? When people moved machines, in their forms, the roles they play, the feelings their hands near to the orange balls constituting the they generate, and also the reflections they might stir up installation, those machines started to shake frantically, in the minds of who experiences them. This technologic and their Theremins generated sounds that were diversity might question us in the way Patricia Piccinini’s modified by the viewer’s movements On Bjoern Nests artworks do: ‘Your machines may just be what you Schuelke’s website, videos show a group of people do of it ‘. Thus, there is in Bjoern Schuelke’s work an interacting with the small wooly machines of Nervous: a interesting approach to question the concepts of young man illustrates with a smile the kind of feeling this “artificial” and “natural”, to create a tension between artwork can generate. Along with providing information those two antagonisms that offers an unusual point of about the artist’s work the site presents questions like view. For once, the place of humans in the world is not “Are the human emotions interfering with the emotions questioned by using animals or the natural world in their of Nervous?” fragility. In extreme opposite to Nervous, is Observer 2 (2003). This sculpture made of steel, alloy, wood, At the beginning of this year, the Belgian gallery monitor, cameras, lights, motors, electronic and sensors is Think21 introduced you as an artist “born from a a silent, dominatrix, menacing artwork as it dwarfs world of spaceships, unusual scientific anyone observing it. instruments and robots”. Do you agree with their And it ‘observes’ us in return whilst slowly moving. This definition and if so, how did these elements come interactive video-sculpture addresses the question of our to be essential part of your practice? relationship with machines in an original way. Here, the entertainment value of Schuelke’s work combines I am fascinated by weird constructions, machines and curiosity and attraction to the ideas of danger and threat forms. The science fiction genre and also the areas of in a machine that functions like surveillance tool. engineering and science continue to inspire me. Things I Observer 2 is an object of mastery. His Solar-Kinetic- create are intended to exist somewhere between
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Björn Schülke Drone #2, 2002, carbon, alloy, monitor, cameras, solar panels, motors, sensors, 14.75 x 7.25 x 2.5' / 450 x 220 x 80 cm Björn Schülke Photo Courtesy: bitforms gallery nyc
science, technology and art. They are “inventions”, but I Might it be a menace- continuously recording out fears of think that irony is good. My pieces are kind of pseudo- autocratic device? Drone #2 is, in some ways, my snarky products that reflect our modern and technology-filled answer to the military defense industry. Are we not environment. vulnerable still, even when we possess the latest tools?I like it when viewers project an artificial intelligence onto The interplay between machines and human my pieces and perceive them to be something between intellectual and emotional intelligence was the creature and robot. theme of the ‘Sentient Cog’ a very successful exhibition held in 2002 at the 5th Gallery in How did you become interested in robotics and Dublin. Then, The Irish Times (3 rd of August, more especially in robotics involving sounds and 2002) reported that “The star of the show is video? undoubtedly Bjoern Schuelke's Drone #2. A giant mechanical bug, it looks like a cross between a bat, a praying mantis and the superstructure of a The area of Robotics is not exactly my main focus- but blimp. From afar, it appears graceful and free, generally I do enjoy kinetic stuff and materials – like noisy but once it senses someone's presence its arms machines that create interesting patterns and rhythm. begin to hover menacingly, as if they had eyes, There is also the connection between electronic music over the viewer.” How did the idea for Drone #2 and technology. For me, aesthetic choices are more come about? about the interplay between movement and form (or
sound). Traditional sculpture that has a flavor for In Drone pieces and the Observer pieces I am pursuing a social exploration of how we, as humans, truly react to machines is more descriptive of what I do- rather than surveillance technology. Is this technology protecting us? genius electrical programming. My works don’t have to
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Björn Schülke Nervous, 1999-2006, theremin, amplifier, servomotor, loudspeaker, plush, wood, 10 in / 25.4 cm Björn Schülke Phot Courtesy: bitforms gallery nyc
be artificially intelligent. It is more interesting when Nervous and Dynamic Capacities are an viewers imagine that the object is artificially intelligent – interactive audio-kinetic object with a bright, even when behind the surface, a simple analog sensor orange and fluffy hemisphere. When approached, controls the piece. it become nervous, start to beep and move frantically. A certain creative playfulness and Interactivity plays a pivotal role in a number of sense of entertainment are very present in some your works. Some of your creations are armed of your artworks. Why? with tiny cameras and stare back at the viewers, quietly recording. They also feature motion I like when viewers have fun. Nervous and Dynamic sensors that allow the robots to identify and take Capacities both use the Theremin, which is the world’s aim at humans in the room, displaying their first electronic music instrument invented by Lev target on small built-in screens. Sergeivich Termen around 1919 in Russia. This instrument is wonderful interface between humans and Most of my works are reactive, not interactive. machines. The zany perky quality it lends to my Interactivity is one of the most overrated terms in new sculptures enables spectators to become actors or media art. When a spectator projects a kind of artificial catalysts. intelligence on the works and believes that my sculptures possess their own behavior – this is actually a What are your environmental concerns and how misunderstanding or perhaps a “faked” interactivity. are these addressed through your creations?
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Björn Schülke Observer #2, 2003, steel, alloy, wood, monitors, cameras, lights, motors, electronics, sensors, 9.5' / 2.9 m high, 10' / 3 m diameter Björn Schülke Photo Courtesy: bitforms gallery nyc
I am working often with epoxi, fiberglass, car paint. These Which artists have more informed your practice? are toxic materials! I think that it is great to see the possibilities of renewable energy like solar power. Tingely, Panamarenko, Calder… Perhaps some of my works open the eyes of some to electric alternatives, but I don’t really see myself as a Are you a fan of sci-fi as a genre? “green artist” exactly. There are a couple of science fiction films that continue Where and/or when do animals and robotic to inspire me: Star Trek – the earlier films, Raumpatrouille creations overlap? Orion- a very curious 1960 German black and white TV series, 2001 – the faux-realism in Kubrick’s film set I don’t see a real overlapping between these two. If a amazes me bird will question us in future on how to use our technology for a relaxing flight – then we can be proud and then talk about a animals and robotic creations overlapping. Generally, we adapt structures and design Bjoern Schuelke lives and works in Cologne. His work has been from the nature for the sake of efficiency or bionic exhibited internationally. affectation. For example some of the studies in wing For more information about the artist, please visit http://www.schuelke.org structure for new airplanes incorporate wing morphology in birds. Bjoern Schuelke was interview by Antennae in winter 2008 Antennae
72 BJORNE SSCHUELKE AND
LEONEL MOURA:
ROBOTARIUM X
Robotarium X, the first zoo for artificial life, approaches robots very much in the way as we are used to look at natural life. We met with Leonel Moura to discuss his original take on robotics. Text by Leonel Moura, Questions by Paula Lee
Leonel Moura Insect Robot, 2008, electronics, variable dimension Photo courtesy Leonel Moura Studio
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e can only see a short distance ahead, but we Acrorhinomorpho, Araneax, Bilurosequor, Bucinaderm, can see plenty there that needs to be done. Cerahetero, Cursovigilo, Pendeopseudosaurus, W Alan Turing Procedofrons, Protopedis, Reptumpacatus, Robotapondera, Superinflatus, Techmuris and Zoid. Robotarium X is a strong idea with a straightforward This classification was based mainly on the morphological production: to create a confined and sunny space for a characteristics, which were determined by locomotion set of autonomous robots to "live" in. Adopting the patterns and also by inner components. Although many aquarium and the zoo as models I wanted to build a of these robots present some similarities with existent similar space focused on the newly born artificial life, i.e. a animals (for example Araneax has the form of a spider zoo for robots. despite having seven legs instead of six), the shape of A series of robotic inhabitants provided with the their bodies resulted from adaptive conditioning. greatest possible autonomy were produced from scratch, Locomotion modes were important, since associated to then I designed a structure in glass and steel based on servomotors that demand a specific position. And, of one of the Johnson solids known as Bilunabirotunda . course, the placement of the photovoltaic panels at the Autonomy and self-sustainability are the main concepts top were even more crucial. of this project, whose operationallity depends strongly on Morphology was determined by environmental the selection of an adequate energy system. It made no adaptation. If robotic components were left at sight, as it sense to use batteries, with limited duration, nor to would derive from their condition of electronic and resort exclusively to direct electric connections, which mechanical species, and if legs, wheels, threads and reduce robot's range. Other forms of energy production, microchips were maintained without any coating, then it like the use of bacteria that generate electricity, although would be expectable that robots would be jammed and fascinating, are still in their first steps and cannot produce unable to move. Hence, a relatively smooth skin, was enough power for a behavior that the human eye is useful to work around this problem. All remaining lumps, fitted to perceive. Ecobot II, a robot that eats flies and feathers and horns, were also placed out of the reach of one of the most interesting projects in this area, moves other robots. The body is adaptive and not decorative. at a speed of 10 cm per hour. The fact that the artificial finds similar solutions as the The option was the photovoltaic energy. natural shouldn't be a surprise. Body building depends Solar energy and robotics make a powerful combination. more on environmental conditions than on imagination, Photovoltaic cells solve the autonomy question as seen in the next chapter. satisfactorily and endorses the general tendency for the In its essence in terms of an artwork, use of clean and renewable energies. Solar power is one Robotarium X explores the relation between man and of the most practical and interesting solutions for the artificial life. It is a dynamic and "lively" piece that construction of autonomous robots. When compared questions some conventional ideas about the artistic with plant rate of exchange, its performance is already object and the notion of culture. The Robotarium X is significant. In fact, the majority of plants retain, for their not an installation - in the sense of contemporary art - sustainability, less than 1 % of the solar energy they but a manifestation of artificial living organisms. The receive, while photovoltaic cells recover almost 15 %. shape and space configuration of this artwork is With small silicon cells of 2,5 x 6 cm, in quantities that determine, jointly, by robots’ "perception" of the vary between two and four according to the species, movements outside the structure and through random robots can move, avoid obstacles and seek for the places relations among all different species established inside it. with higher solar light incidence (phototaxis). Despite intelligence and the general sensorial capacity The majority of Robotarium X inhabitants being small we can say that this "sculpture" is always in a belong to the BEAM (Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics and continuous organic mutation, performing a sort of dance Mechanics) family, meaning a minimum of electronic in which the choreography is constantly defined by the components, a simple sensor/actuator system and solar non-human agents themselves. power energy. With a small capacity for interacting with The Robotarium X is the first of its kind in the the environment, being the current species limited to the world. Soon there will be similar projects in many other detection of obstacles and the search for sunlight, robots cities and places. Following the dazzle phase provoked by cannot do much more than move from one side to the simulation machine, the next step in human-machine another. Provided that sun power is not completely symbiosis will be the issue of cooperation. Men and absent, some of the robots are always in movement. robots will build together new urban environments and This low agitation is however not relevant. In this zoo life new forms of individual and collective existence. forms are slow, clumsy and unstable. They represent a The Robotarium X is an artistic vision of the future. primitive stage of evolution. But nevertheless we cannot avoid being amazed by its independent life. To strengthen the idea of a new species I gave a Latin name to each type of robot. Fourteen species were born in a total of 45 individuals, named as follow: 74
Leonel Moura Inside view of Robotarium X Leonel Moura Studio
The new species Only from these basic conditions, a more advanced intelligence, capacity of reproduction and an embedded All truth passes through 3 stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, process of evolution can be considered. it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self- Currently, we are the only evolution agents of robots, evident. doing a job somehow similar to nature, though without Arthur Schopenhauer the same patience and thousands of years of empirical investment. It is therefore a controlled evolution and, in The Robotarium X assumes robots as a new species, that sense, rather incoherent. with which we already share the planet. This species is Most of current scientific investment in this area yet at its first steps of evolution and shows many is directed to top-down creations of configured robotic shortcomings. Among other drawbacks, it did not yet entities, for the satisfaction of immediate human interests develop a true autonomic process. But that is a matter of and totally subject to our own will. Humanoid robots, time, not of purpose. those with more evident public success and a more To show real autonomy, robots must accomplish bright short-term economic future ahead, are meant to the following minimum requirements: reproduce human behaviors and to accomplish some a) Be equipped with an independent body social and cultural functions, such as hard work, public b) To accumulate energy by its own means service, elderly and sick assistance and entertainment. To c) Be able to gather data directly from the environment generate a singular robotic life based on such d) To avoid danger situations, blockage and prevent anthropomorphic trends is complex and may turn out to damaging components be slower than it is currently advertised. The creation of e) Have the capacity to self-restore small harms self-sufficient robots with unique morphologies, simpler f) Learn from experience emergent behaviors and a more resilient way of life seems to be much more promising. This kind of robotics 75
will probably stem from recombination between nano I have always been a conceptual artist, but by mid 1990’s and biotechnologies, computation, random and emergent I thought that the so-called “contemporary art” was processes. burned out. The dissemination of the Personal But futurology is not needed. Current reality is Computer and the Internet made clear that art need already overcrowded with many intelligent machines, radical change. Not since artists would now have new though very gauche and frequently deceiving. Anyway, tools, but because these new tools fuelled deep the new species is born, among us and grows. In a implications in knowledge and creativity. Science as process somehow similar to the Cambrian explosion changed a lot in the last decades, art not so much. For when Earth is "suddenly" occupied by bizarre life forms, the first time in history art is staying behind. most with strange shapes and feeble sustainability, but This delay stems from some kind of resistance of that in fact drove the course of evolution. Robots are not “humanities” against scientific thought. It is common for far from that, rehearsing the first attempts to its artists to utter anti-technological statements that they existence. Some may recall the Hallucigenia, an pretend to be a defence of humans. But in fact they just unbelievable "thing" full of thorns and tentacles of reflect ignorance and superstition not very dissimilar from dubious function, that around 500 million years ago had religious irrationalism. its fifteen minutes of fame just before vanishing into the In this context I became more and more deep kingdom of the primitive fossils. Others look like interested in architecture and science. I have started agitated amoebae reacting to environmental stimuli or working with algorithms to generate “buildings” which look like insects, spiders, fishes, dogs or imitate this was feasible in the virtual world but not in the real one. stubborn anthropomorphism of ours. There are also These first rather frustrating experiments helped to some that experience the adventure of their own nature define better the new field of interests. Morphogenesis, and come to light in shapes and behaviors quite unique. intelligence and autonomy appeared to me as the key All of them set up a new kind of life that is here to concepts to generate intelligent and autonomous agents stimulate and challenge us. able to create their own artworks. Robots were the A kind of life that will only be fulfilled once it unavoidable choice. manages to acquire its own freewill and be detached Later on - to answer to the second part of your from us. I don't fear that moment. On the contrary, the question - I started looking at robots as a new species emergence of a new kind of life form, as much or more evolving to colonize our planet. Although robots are intelligent than us, will boost humanity’s own frequently meant to mimic animals - by simulating evolutionary process. Intelligence confrontation means behaviours and appearances –, I see them as a distinct increment of global available intelligence. species. The process of generating a new kind of nature is thus unstoppable. In the post-Cartesian history of modern robotics, The construction of an "artificial nature" is not a “the animal” has served as a model for novelty in human history. The urban environment, in mechanical systems rather than as part of an which humanity lives at present time, is a kind of nature embedded environment linked to survival largely artificial, a Nature 2.0. strategies and behaviours. Do you see your robots Cities with their buildings, streets, constructions, as challenges to this formulation? networks, communications and endless social and cultural interactions are an invention of our particular form of life. When we shift from the animal as a mechanical model to The novelty with the Nature 3.0 that we are now in the life as an autopoietic system, we understand that it is not process of creating is that it is inhabited by artificial so important to simulate mechanics but rather to trigger organisms that will compete with us for intelligence, self-sustained processes. If we speak about autonomous planetary transformation and space exploration. Nature robots, the question – as Christopher Langton put it – is 3.0 competition will not be anymore about territory, not life-as-it-is but rather life as-it-could-be. food and sex, or in modern terms, wealth, power and Let me give the example of the famous – but lost – sex, but for intelligence amplification. Vaucanson mechanical duck constructed in the 18th Our loneliness is about to end. century. This duck seemly could eat and defecate. But the simulation of digestion was in fact nothing more than We would like to thank you for the a clever magic trick, consisting of discarding some kind of opportunity to pose these questions, the pre-prepared material, which looks like faeces. complexities of which reflect the challenging The most interesting autonomous robots of today are nature of your work. By way of introduction, bio-inspired but what they do is not an illusion. It is the can you describe how you came to be real thing. interested in robotics as an artistic medium, and the process by which you conceived the In 2006, for the Museum of Natural History in robots in relationship to animals? New York, you created a work that featured RAP (“robot action painter”) who was also
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Leonel Moura Isu070607, 2007, permanent ink on canvas, 250 x 450 cm Leonel Moura Studio
able to sign its own creations. How much obviously the robot, using some kind of creativity that randomness in a process (albeit a programmed does not depend on the human action that has launched randomness) removes the hand of the the process. programmer? At what point does the robot become that which is no longer you or yours, and A core question posed by the affirmation of the thus capable of authorship? animal as artist (the bee as architect, the bowerbird as builder, the beaver as engineer, the My problem was how to build a system able to generate dolphin as dancer, the elephant as painter, etc.), autonomously original and distinctive paintings. Hence, is also provoked by your robots: does must art be decisive in this robot is not randomness, but its ability to informed by intentionality, consciousness, and gather by itself the information it needs to build a historicity on the part of the maker, or is the pictorial composition. What you call the “hand of the (human) audience’s capacity to provide these programmer” is meant to provide decision making skills, elements both a necessary and sufficient not to give precise instructions. requirement to the conditions of art-making? Put In this case, it is adequate to put forward the another way: can robots be spectators? Does it issue of artificial creativity, meaning the ability of a matter if the robots, like the rabbits in Watership machine to simulate human or animal creativity, but Down, neither know nor care to call the shapes showing also some characteristics of its own (I make an they’re making “art”? analogy between artificial intelligence as an ontological property and artificial creativity). Intentionality and consciousness are not indispensable One of these characteristics stems from concepts when we speak about morphogenesis. stigmergy. Stigmergy is a form of indirect communication Termites don’t know that they are building their through the environment. The robot only “sees” a small impressive Termitaria. My robots don’t have any idea and local part of the painting – the environment – , but who Pollock was. Anyway, we humans can appreciate that information is enough to generate an original what Termites or RAP do, as aesthetical, artistic or composition that it is not random but also not creative constructions. The distinction between human deterministic. Hence the author of such a composition is art and animal or machine art is the result of the
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anthropocentric ideology that has always dominated those demonstrated by social insects such as human religion and philosophy. My work tries to express ants. It is arguably to that insecta in general that a critical view to that perspective by making the point your robots bear the most physical resemblance. that creativity – like intelligence – is inherent to all living But is it necessary to understand robots through organisms, including the artificial ones. principles of resemblance in the first place? Are your machines meant to mirror biological As a way to contextualize robot art, many of your processes in some way, or is this a corollary writings invoke Surrealism’s exploration of “pure expression of other factors? psychic automatism” as affirmed by André Breton. However, a closer analogy to the totality My model is not based on insects in general but of the installations might be Duchamp’s specifically on eusocial insects, such as ants, bees or demonstrations of “controlled chance,” an termites. These particular species have developed a experiment later taken up by American avant- unique kind of social organization based on simple rules, garde artists such as choreographer Merce stigmergy, cooperation and labour specialization. I took Cunningham. Cunningham’s dancers followed inspiration from some of these characteristics, aiming at movements he patterned but were mutually performance rather than resemblance. indifferent; they were free to do what they In fact autonomous robots are still at the stage of a kind wanted as long as they stayed on stage, their of Cambrian Explosion period. From all the current actions thus defined by the parameters he had morphologies and behaviours, a few will evolve and most set out for them. Your robot installations would will perish. And of course we have not yet been able to seem to inherit the legacy of performance art in introduce any kind of replication, a sine qua non condition an age where chaos theory seeks to complicate for the robots to achieve their own evolution and linear models of mechanistic determinism. Would “biology”. you agree with this observation, and if not, why? Engineers have created digital evolutionary I have quoted several times the surrealist concept of systems that solve problems in ways humans “pure psychic automatism” just to demonstrate that art have never considered, partly because of the can be made minimizing consciousness. But I would not ability of machines to process tremendous speak about a “controlled chance” here, because the real amounts of calculations without pause. To what issue is precisely to “lose control”. Though randomness extent do you believe that “robots will soon and determinism – like positive feedback and thresholds acquire their own freewill and be detached from – are present in my algorithms, what really matters for us?” Is this a poetic notion, or is it truly believed the outcome is stigmergy and emergence. that robots can exist in parallel to humans as autonomous agents? Historian of science Minsoo Kang has noted the robot’s “uncanny” ability to blur structural With my robot RAP I have introduced a kind of freewill, binaries such as human/animal, man/woman, and given that it is the machine that decides when the work other artifacts of human culture influentially is finished. This is not done with a quantitative threshold described by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. - like time or amount of strokes -, but with a Even as your robots gray the area between man “perceptive” observation of the painting status. and (other) animals, does this open up the If the issue is true autonomy, some kind of freewill must eventual possibility that they will rely on neither be present. It does not mean, necessarily, our kind of for meaning? conscious freewill but instead, the ability of a machine to make unpredicted decisions. I am absolutely convinced that the more robots will become autonomous, the more they will establish their Your robot zoo, Robotarium, is a fascinating own kind of behaviour, intelligence, creativity (and even work, not only because the zoo model individual and collective goals). Some will appear to be fetishizes by excision and isolation, implying familiar to us, in the same way that we tend to that robot life is in need of protection, but it anthropomorphize animals and objects. But some will also thus signals that humans and robots are gain distinctiveness and novelty to the point of becoming competing for status and resources, and incomprehensible to us. We will need to build a new humans are winning. Is Robotarium a form of science dedicated to the comprehension of robots’ activism, one that calls attention to our behaviour. It could be coined Robotology if the name collective limitations, implying that the mutual wasn’t already spoiled by a youngster television series. survival of humans and other creatures depends on competition for finite resources? We pose here, something like a chicken and an How much of the “art” here resides in the egg problem: your writings affirm the robots as a need and desire our brains have to seek order new “species,” and link their response habits to in the chaos, and the poetic in the ordinary? Is
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Leonel Moura Group of Insect Robots, 2008, electronics, variable dimension Leonel Moura Studio
Leonel Moura A selection of robost featured in Robotarium X Leonel Moura Studio
survival of the (robot) species postulated, and component of our ecosystem. It is unthinkable for us to if so, how would this affect the politically- live without them. And terrible boring too. charged discourse of species and specieism? In Electric Animal, Akira Mizura Lippit posits the In fact the Robotarium spreads some flavour of animal as a kind of already-undead being, one domination, given that the robots are imprisoned inside a that is caught in a state of perpetual vanishing cage for human observation. But I would emphasize that due to the incursions of language. The our curiosity towards a distinct form of life is the first Robotarium might seem to be a commentary on, step for acceptance and respect. In this sense, I advocate and a hastening of, the vanishing of animals. an extension of the ecological awareness to include Insofar as living animals are going extinct at an machines. Actually machines are already an essential alarming rate, do you see your robots as positive
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successors filling the subsequent void, or as and also common destiny. We cannot see it just as potential simulacrum hastening the prosthesis. For example, the role of our first partner in “irrelevance” of carbon-based life? space exploration – the dog Laika -, is now being played by robots. Space exploration will only be possible with The fact is that my mind does not work that way. I don’t the combination of human/robot skills. And probably the see robots with a minus but with a plus sign. We have most important aspect of our interaction with robots and humans, birds, fish, bees and now we must add robots. other very clever machines will be the enhancement of Robots will certainly replace humans and other animals in human intelligence. many tasks and ways, but not inevitably in the context of natural life extermination, which is a direct consequence How important is it to you to erase the boundary of human behaviour. between the viewer and the work, prodding the Anyhow, it is not very interesting to look at the rise of audience into the role of active, invested robots as a fictional conflict between artificial and natural participant in the aLife of these robots? life. More fascinating is to focus on the various forms of hybridization that are already occurring and will, for sure, So far my focus point has been “taking the human out of increase greatly in the near future. The boundary the loop”, but the interaction between machines and between artificial and natural is not operative anymore. humans is also an interesting field. Nevertheless, I don’t Just look at the so-called wildlife animals which are see interaction as human control over the machine but walking with a GPS collar around their neck, and cannot rather as a kind of dialogue between equals, a matter survive without the permanent human protection and that neither robots nor humans are yet prepared for. assistance. Wildlife is now so much natural as it is Most of the current interaction between humans and artificial. machines is a one way process. I am not interested in Hybridization affects bodies, minds, behaviours
Leonel Moura Isu040307, 2007, permanent ink on canvas, 80 x 100 cm Leonel Moura Studio 80
that, and certainly not in art. If there is any novelty in my projects, it stems from the fact that I don't see the machine as a tool, but as an author.
What are you currently working on?
As an artist I want to disseminate the concept of the Robotarium. As an artist/scientist I am developing a new system of painting robots adding specialization to a swarm of heterogeneous robots to see what happens…
Leonel Moura is a European artist born in Lisbon, Portugal, he created in 2003 his first swarm of ‘Painting Robots’, able to produce original artworks based on emergent behavior. Since then he has produced several artbots, each time more autonomous and sophisticated. RAP (Robotic Action Painter), 2006, generates random poems, very much in the style of the Lettrist Movement and of Concrete Poetry. In 2007 the Robotarium, the first zoo dedicated to robots and artificial life, opened in Alverca. Also in 2007, he inaugurates in Lisbon an Art Space [LMA] to show the works done by his robot artists. Leonel Moura has been appointed European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation.
Leonel Moura was interviewed by Antennae in January 2009
For more information please visit www.leonelmoura.com
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G RANT MORRISON:
W e3
Grant Morrison is a prolific comic writer who has tackled animal issues in a number of his stories. One of the most well known of these is We3, a three-issue comic about animal cyborgs that turn against their human creators. Text and Questions by Lisa Brown
orrison’s participation in the Animal Liberation did 70 pages of sketches to develop the armour and Front Supporters Group in the 1980s and his make it believable. In the end, the look was based mostly M many years as an animal advocate lend depth on Japanese motorcycle design. to his writing. He infuses We3 with historically accurate tidbits about animal testing. He explores ideology about At the beginning of the book you list a number of the use of animals in warfare. But We3 never becomes names, and you thank them for inspiring you. didactic, nor does it rely on treacle sentimentalism to Some of these appear to be animal’s names. garner the reader’s sympathies. Instead, Morrison Who are they, and how did they inspire you in develops his animal characters as complicated the telling of this story? protagonists whose actions are at once horrifying and understandable. The animal-machine hybrids reflect Those are all names of cats. They inspired me by living Morrison’s terrifying vision of a future that, at times, their lives in close proximity to mine and by teaching me seems all too inevitable. more about animal communication, intelligence and Not only has Morrison created a concise, consciousness than any amount of books could. entertaining read, but he has also brought new insight to the issue of animal experimentation. I recently asked In the late 1980’s you began work on the Morrison to share his thoughts on We3. seminal comic Animal Man, and joined the Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group. What You write for many mediums, but you chose to impact did these experiences have on the story tell the story of We3 as a comic. What did this of We3? format enable you to do that other mediums couldn’t? None specifically. I just like animals and I always have. When I was young, I was exposed to ‘The Animals Film’ It allowed me to collaborate again with artist Frank which really disturbed and upset me and led ultimately to Quitely and to try out some visual and narrative tricks the creation of books like ‘Animal Man’ and ’We3’. which wouldn’t have been possible in any other medium. The U.S. has an unfortunate history of stealing How did you and artist Frank Quitely come up with the companion animals in order to use them in labs look of the animals? Was it a collaborative process? for scientific and medical experiments. You reference that history by showing family-made Very much. We discussed it for a long time and Quitely “missing” posters for each of the three main
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Grant Morrison Frame from We3, published by Vertigo Comics
characters. Did you draw from other historical or Each of the animals has a distinct personality, scientifically relevant information to create the despite their mechanical manipulations. The dog story of We3? is fiercely loyal and craves the approval of his human master, the cat is disdainful of humans, I was mostly thinking about the use of animals during and the rabbit is obsessed with eating. How did wartime. Animal ‘soldiers’ have been around for a long you determine when they would respond to time and I pushed current technology a few years into situations as animals, and when they would the future to create a kind of science fiction version of respond as machines – or how did you integrate what might be possible if governments decided to these personas? replace human troops in an unpopular war with bred- for-the-purpose remote-controlled animal alternatives. Once the animals break free of control and go on the run, the personalities become more distinct and ‘natural’ The animals’ language combines computer and for want a better word. At the same time, these animals animal characteristics in a way that is entirely have been trained to work together as a unit, which believable. How did you come up with this would probably be quite unlikely in any real world language? scenario, so we also see some atypical animal behaviour.
I started with the basics – dogs ‘understand’ a human In May 2008, just a few years after We3 was vocabulary of around 75 words or so (I may be wrong published, scientists from the University of about the number – I don’t have my research to hand) Pittsburgh demonstrated how a lab monkey was so the dog is clearly more adept at handling human able to feed himself using robotic arms that were concepts and tries harder, as a pack animal, to impress entirely controlled by the monkey’s brain. The his bosses and corral his troops. The cat is basically ‘get mainstream press was remarkably silent on the out of my face!’ and has a much smaller vocabulary, while potential for this technology to be developed as a the rabbit is concerned mostly with where its next meal weapon, and on the inhumaneness of the is coming from and tends to use its very small range of experiment. Do you see experiments like these human words to demand food and attention. and wonder if – or when – your nightmarish I set the basic limits of expression for each vision in We3 will come true? animal, mixed the result with a kind of ‘text messaging’ abbreviated style which added, as you say, an artificial, Insects have already being weaponized and turned into computerized element. I imagined the end result remote-control drones. I’ve read of similar experiments sounding like a child speaking through Stephen Hawking’s being performed on rats and I’m sure there’s a lot we voice synthesizer. ‘How R. U? Is GUD dog?’ etc. don’t even get to hear about it because no right-thinking
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Grant Morrison Frame from We3, published by Vertigo Comics human being would be able to deal with the truth of the world of the animals any more than I had already, so how we abuse animals for our own twisted ends, it was important to portray them as real animals, capable without a thought given to the fact that cruelty to of bloody violence when necessary. These are animals animals is one of the first indicators of sociopathic or which have been brutalized to become weapons of war, psychopathic tendencies. Every awful thing we can so a big part of the story is about what happens when a imagine is probably being done to some poor animal product of scientific hubris goes wrong and turns against somewhere. its creators. II described it as ‘Disney with fangs’.
Early on the animals endear themselves to the It seems like it would be tempting to make all reader -- even as they viciously kill humans and humans the enemy and all animals sympathetic. other animals. How did you manage to make Yet you have some very sympathetic humans and them sympathetic, and why was this important in a very frightening animal to counterbalance the the larger context of your story? characters. How does this change the tenor of what the reader takes away from the story? They’re sympathetic because we all have a certain degree of empathy for the underdog – especially when As we know, there are lots of human who love and care it’s a literal underdog! We understand that they’ve for animals, so it would certainly be remiss of me to stick suffered and we want to see them escape and survive with a ‘Four legs good, two legs bad!’ approach. What I because they deserve to. There’s a ‘Frankenstein’ or ‘King hope it shows is that while animals may be, in many Kong’ element here and I think we all have a place in our cases, the product of purely instinctual drives, humans hearts for the idea of the poor, misunderstood brute on are able to change their minds and rewire their the run from forces he barely understands. behaviour patterns. Most of the human characters in At the same time, I didn’t want to sentimentalize We3 have their eyes opened by events in the story.
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Grant Morrison Frame from We3, published by Vertigo Comics 85
Grant Morrison Cover artwork to the We3 trade paperback. Art by Frank Quitely. 2004
It is shocking to see the dog and cat without One of the great things about fiction is the ‘happy their coats of armor, with wires and metal ending’. In the real world, the We3 animals would have protruding from their bodies and skulls. When been cornered, shot and killed. I toyed with this bleak Quitely first showed you these drawings, was it ‘realistic’ conclusion for a while before rejecting it. hard for you to see them like that as well? Why was it important to be so graphic at that In the end, I’d grown to love the animal characters in moment? We3 and I wanted to see them make it ‘home’. It was lucky for them they wound up in a story by me because I That’s how it would look. In fact, it would probably look chose to let them succeed. a lot worse than Quitely’s depictions and it’s unlikely that the armour would be as easy to remove without What was the general reaction to We3 when 3 killing the animals so there’s a certain degree of poetic was first published as a serial, and then as a license here. The scabby, sickly appearance of the animals graphic novel? Did the response surprise you? at this point in the story shows their complete vulnerability and emphasizes their strength and It was very popular. I wasn’t really surprised as it was a endurance at the same time. strong, simple idea and Frank Quitely’s artwork was some of the best and most inventive ever seen in a We3 could have ended pessimistically or comic book. optimistically. You chose the latter. How did you make that choice? In 2005, you adapted We3 for a film version. What were the challenges you faced in
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Grant Morrison Frame from We3, published by Vertigo Comics
translating We3 from comics to film script? What is the status of that project?
We have a director, John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda) attached and a studio. We’re currently waiting for effects costings. It’s been a long process that’s not over yet. In terms of challenges, it turned out to be very easy to adapt We3. It’s a very cinematic story, with a simple premise and a relentless forward movement. I think the film script is actually better than the original comic strip because I was able to include a couple of scenes that couldn’t fit into the comic book page count. Grant Morrison is highly regarded as one of the most original and inventive writers in the comics medium. His revisionist Batman book Animal rights issues have long been a passion of ARKHAM ASYLUM (with artist David McKean) has sold over 500,000 copies worldwide and won numerous awards, making it the most yours. Do you have any upcoming projects that successful original graphic novel to be published in America. He has been focus on an animal agenda? recognised as one of the top writers in the comics industry for more than 20 years and is acknowledged as one of its most imaginative storytellers. Animals usually play a role in all of my stories, in one way or another. I do have another big project that’s all about Grant Morrison was interviewed by Antennae in January 2009 Antennae animals but in a very different way to anything I’ve done before but that’s in the very early stages at the moment. For more information please visit www.grantmorrison.com
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JESSICA JOSLIN:
MYTH AND
MAGIC
The creatures that make up Jessica Joslin's world are specimens of unknown species, captured from the collision of myth and science. They are constructed and formed through an intricate fusion of bone, brass, antique hardware and other delicate fragments. Text by Kathleen Vanesian Interivew by Lisa Brown
Jessica Joslin Fiala and Lartet, 2005, Antique hardware, brass, bone, leather, cicada wings, antique velvet & trim, model cannon, pewter feet, glass eyes, 11"x6"x22" Jessica Joslin
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n the phantasmagorical sculptural world of Jessica flash art,31 circus banners, vintage fetish photography, Joslin, a rose is not a rose, despite poetic assertions of entomological mounts, taxidermied animals and many Lost Generation writer Gertrude Stein to the other odd bits and bobs…."32 I 29 contrary. It may look like a rose, but chances are Jessica Joslin will quickly declare that none of her excellent that, in Joslin's universe, any such floral form exotic skeletonized creatures actually has ever existed in would be composed of a variety of puzzle-like parts that nature. They are essentially mythic beings that spring have little to do with the traditional worlds of botany or from the richness of her personal life experience, in- flora. depth scholarly research, endlessly fecund imagination The artfully imagined skeletal macrocosm that and formidable power of association. Her creations sculptor Jessica Joslin has constructed over the past 16 share more than an affinity with those improbable years teems with elusive three-dimensional mammalian, animal/avian/human hybrids lavishly illustrated in medieval avian and insect forms. Many of these animals are bestiaries. Extremely popular in the 12th and 13th articulated and movable. They are all painstakingly centuries and usually, though not always, penned by created from a complex assortment of disparate objects Church doctors, bestiaries were detailed compilations of that Joslin has collected from the worlds of nature and of imaginary beasts, including ant-lions, sea-pigs, dragons, man. The artist baptizes each of her intricately fabricated unicorns and griffins, as well as birds and even stones, offspring with whimsical, often mythological, names, about whom fanciful tales were written for allegorical including some directly appropriated from her own purposes. family's genealogical chart. Joslin collects names as Joslin's idea of creating her own post-modern obsessively as she does the other detritus and artifacts bestiary of fictional creatures can probably be traced to that fill the small Chicago studio space she has shared early parenting by her father, a commercial artist with her husband, mentor and sounding board, painter specializing in trade show displays and props, and her Jared Joslin, for the last fifteen years. librarian mother, from whom she learned sorting, Animal skulls, bird and fish bones, feathers organizing and cataloguing skills. Born and raised in plucked from another millennium's millinery Boston, Massachusetts in 1971, the artist was exposed masterpieces, orphaned electric and gas lamps, once early on to facets of science, nature, literature and fashionable furs harvested from what the artist terms mythology that even the most persnickety Boston "grandma collars," antique silverware, jewellery findings, Brahmin would find satisfactory. As a little girl, Joslin arcane industrial hardware, Oddfellow ritual regalia, glass haunted the halls of Harvard University's Museum of eyes -- these and many more esoteric items are Natural History, falling hopelessly in love with its room- cannibalized, recycled and reconfigured by the artist into sized case of articulated skeletons: her unearthly menagerie of preternatural specimens. With consummate craftsmanship, Joslin reaches into this "There was a skeleton of an ostrich, giraffe, lions and shrews. wildly diverse bag of ingredients to magically conjure There were beautiful, exotic animals and tropical birds of eerily life-like skeletal sculptures, highly evocative of real every hue, all taxidermied. The exhibits were in beautiful old members of the animalia kingdom, which she often wooden vitrines, with tiny engraved brass plaques and places within theatrical or historical contexts -- all with a hardware. The creatures in the exhibits felt like inhabitants wry gothic edge. of another mysterious world. I was enchanted by the As pointed out by psychoanalyst Werner strange beauty of it all." 33 Muensterberger, a contemporary artist's collections frequently provide animation and inspiration for his art, While other children were being lulled to sleep or may even sway his barely conscious susceptibilities, with tales of Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter Rabbit and The long before the artist himself is fully aware of the source. 30 There is no question that this is the case for Joslin, who, along with her husband, admits to being an inveterate collector of just about anything intriguing to 31 her, or potentially reducible into useful component parts. Flash art refers to paper or cardboard tattoo designs traditionally displayed on the walls of tattoo parlors or in binders to give "As you can imagine, I have quite a few bones of customers ideas as to available designs; tattooing became especially all kinds and many boxes of things like antique car horns popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the rise in and musical instruments…," notes the artist. "There's a popularity of the circus, which often employed full-body tattooed wall [in the studio] lined with hundreds of tiny drawers people in sideshows. 32 Kate Hodges, "Beautiful Bones," Bizarre, No. 111, June 2006, p. with obscure labels, like 'pewter bird feet,' 'fish scales,' 36 'chrome spikes,' 'umbrella tips'. We also collect vintage 33 From written interview with artist for Hodges' Bizarre article, 2006. See also, http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/on_exhibit/on_exhibit.html To this day, the museum's Hall of Mammals, its oldest and most dramatic 29 Actually, Stein's famous Zen-like utterance, which first appeared gallery, uses a 19th century arrangement of specimens that includes in her 1913 poem, Sacred Emily, in fact originally reads: "Rose is a a full sized giraffe and three whale skeletons suspended from the rose is a rose." rafters. Some creatures on display, like the Tasmanian wolf, have 30 Werner Muensterberger, Collecting: An Unruly Passion since become extinct. In the balcony, Harvard's extensive collection (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 211. of North American birds can still be found. 89
Jessica Joslin Antique hardware, brass, bone, painted wood ball, leather, glass eyes, 11"x6"x16", 2005 Jessica Joslin
Poky Little Puppy, Jessica Joslin's father was reading her entire family, in the belly of a brass ox.34 bedtime stories from Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable During childhood, Joslin was equally smitten with Or Beauties of Mythology (1913). Weaned on winged assorted objects she collected on nature walks with her Greek gods, salacious centaurs, marauding pygmies and family. Shells, seedpods, rocks, dried flowers, beach glass, King Arthur's Round Table, Joslin considers the stories bones and feathers from these outings were put on and characters to which she was exposed as a child old display in a cabinet at home, an activity that, years later, friends, after whom she would subsequently name would play a critical role in Joslin's artmaking. Along with particular pieces, including Falada (1998), one of her accumulating pieces of nature and information about earliest "trophy" sculptures. A plumed, helmeted, them, Joslin was amassing ideas about forms into which ornately masked and wall-mounted horse's skull, Falada she could transmute these objects, as is evident from a takes its name from "The Goose Girl," a classic, early drawing she executed at the tender age of 8. Still extant, 19th century Brothers Grimm fairy tale about a talking, it lovingly illustrates a bulbous horse chestnut, winged albeit decapitated horse, loyal to a down-on-her-luck sugar maple seed and spiky sweet gum seed. Under her princess snookered by an evil maid-in-waiting. Eustace little botanical pictures, she has transformed these (2002), another trophy skull with deer horns, objects into drawings of a proposed chestnut-headed embellished with antique embroidered Oddfellow regalia doll, an intriguing nose horn made from a winged maple suggestive of clerical vestments, was named for a seed and a sweet gum seed porcupine. legendary 2nd century Christian saint who, prior to his conversion to Christianity, was a general under the Roman emperor Trajan. According to religious tradition, 34 Joslin's Hubertus (2002), a companion piece to Eustace, is Eustace -- considered the patron saint of hunters -- saw likewise based on a 7th century saint, who is also considered a vision of Christ and a glowing cross emblazoned the patron saint of hunters, as well as mathematicians, between the antlers of a stag he was hunting outside of opticians and metalworkers. Like St. Eustace, Hubertus, a Rome, which spoke to him and set him on the path to noble of the French royal court, experienced an inter-hunt eventual sainthood after being roasted, along with his vision of a stag with a cross between his antlers while simultaneously hearing a heavenly voice telling him he was going to hell unless he trod the path of holiness from then on. 90
In 1992, while she was earning a bachelor of fine arts were also stock fare for obsessed cabinet collectors. degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Viewed within this historical-environment, Joslin's (SAIC), Joslin's father sent her items from the family sculptural creations take on new life, easily sliding into the display cabinet, which she ultimately incorporated into categories of marvelous and unusual, mandatory traits some of her initial sculptures. Her very first one, Marco necessary for inclusion in any curiosity cabinet of yore. (1992), was a rather ominous winged creature, In the mid-90s, dissatisfied with the austere composed of several found bird skulls, black feathers manner in which her pieces were being presented in from antique millinery, a chrome decanter stopper and galleries, Joslin would begin making ornamental platforms parts salvaged from a protractor and an antique adding and shelves to stage her pieces, which evolved into machine. During her tenure at SAIC, she recalls that mises-en-scène capturing the zeitgeist of old-fashioned, unsuspecting birds would fly to their deaths by slamming 19th century circus sideshows, with their unabashed into the school's mirrored glass building façade. Their displays of human and animal oddities. Cerberus (1994), tiny corpses offered the artist not only opportunities to a two-headed turtle creature, being ridden by a small practice taxidermy, but also provided an easily accessible sandpiper-like charioteer and ensconced on a fringed, source for sculptural parts. footed pedestal, was the first piece in which Joslin utilized It was only after all of her photographic a platform as an integral part of the showcased creature. equipment, including a beloved large-format camera, was Named after the infamous three-headed dog with a stolen from her apartment, that the artist turned her snake's tail, believed by the ancient Greeks to guard the attention to making sculptures exclusively. Memories of gates of hell, Cerberus also featured an elevated, hand- the shrine-like display of the family's nature-walk carved chariot seat in which the bird driver was souvenirs led to Joslin’s subsequent interest in cabinets of enthroned like a tiny Ben-Hur. While the heads and curiosities, a framework into which her sometimes body of Cerberus were crafted from parts of various unsettling art would fit seamlessly. animal skulls and turtle shell, the legs on Cerberus's First appearing during the early Renaissance, presentation cushion were sculpted and cast by the artist, cabinets of curiosities (also referred to as as were the feet and claws of her monstrous turtle. Wunderkammern, or "cabinets of wonder") were used to Cerberus would presage many later pieces display idiosyncratic collections of the strange, the rare, suggestive of performing circus animals or dubious stars the marvellous and the artful, be they natural or of carnival sideshows, including Bela (2002), a toothy, manmade, with the intent of provoking a sense of begging canine crowned with tasselled conical hat, Fiala curiosity and awe in the viewer. These cabinets, usually and Lartet (2005), a crouching feline harnessed to a owned by royalty and the very wealthy, became de wheeled platform bearing a diminutive two-headed bird rigueur during the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and and Lambert & Salvia (2006), a vague cross between 18th centuries. 35 Artificialia and naturalia were displayed ferret and cat tethered to a rolling platform upon which side by side, since it was the idea of the wonderment the rides a Lilliputian, curly-tailed rodent. Recently, in object engendered, rather than any sort of rigorous keeping with this turn-of-the-century circus motif, Joslin scientific classification, which often fuelled any such produced an entire series of work featuring an collection. Thus, pickling jars of two-tailed lizards, forked assortment of eccentric beasts balanced on balls: Luna carrots and conjoined Siamese twins might share space (2006) and Flora (2006), two tiny avian creatures with seashells from far-off oceans, the toe bone of a saint perched on orbs that measure a total of only 4 inches in and the purported skeleton of a mermaid or similarly height; Ludwig (2006), a simian about to spring from his faked marvel. red and white striped ball; and Marcel (2006), an elegant, Also a common part of these cabinets were two-foot-tall, deer-like beast resembling a dik-dik, a small vanitas still life paintings, featuring skulls, hourglasses, antelope that roams the bush of southern and east wilting flowers and other momento mori taken directly Africa.37 from a cabinet's collection. Important ethnographic By 1994, the artist was employed making items from unknown cultures, like weapons from sub- prototypes, props, product models and trade show Saharan tribes and previously unknown fruits and displays, daily honing her mechanical skills in carpentry, vegetables, such as coconuts, potatoes36 and plant painting, mold-making and machining. She recalls that specimens that had mysteriously grown into odd shapes, "during the day I was doing things like building a 10-foot- tall slice of pizza, then working on my beasts in the evening."38 As her mechanical skills matured, Joslin 35 For more information about the history of cabinets of would rely more and more on bones she cast from curiosity, see Muensterberger, Collecting: An Unruly Passion, Chapter 10, "The Age of Curiosity," pp. 183-203; plastic resin and then painted, to spot-on simulate real see also, John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, eds, The Cultures animal bones. These castings were a way of expanding of Collecting (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, the materials with which she could construct her pieces, 1994). 36 When first introduced into 16th century Europe from the 37 The dik-dik, pronounced "dk' dk" or "dick dick,"is named New World, potatoes were actually considered evil and the for the sound they make when alarmed. cause of, among other maladies, leprosy and rampant 38 From recorded telephonic interview with artist by author, sexuality. October 3, 2007. 91
Jessica Joslin Antique hardware and findings, brass, polycarbonate 6”x10”x3”, 2006 Jessica Joslin
without running afoul of endangered species laws or bone and whose feet are a feat of combined precision other proscriptions dealing with exotic or protected wild engineering and fastidious jewelry making. animals: "There are so many amazing exotic species," These pieces bring to mind the singular spawn of states the artist. "I would never see the living animal, let Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the experimenting scientist, alone find the skull lying around on the ground. With created by 19th century British novelist Mary Shelley, castings, I can pick specific species to which I would who learns how to reanimate flesh and brings into never otherwise have access."39 existence an unnamed, highly sentient humanoid from Perhaps in a wholly unconscious quest to further body parts taken from the dead.40 In contrast to Dr. animate her creations, Jessica Joslin introduced the Frankenstein, Joslin fabricates her beautifully bushelled thematic device of marionette strings into her work beasts from found or collected manmade and artist-cast beginning in 1999 and, with them, the idea of an ancient parts, as well as forsaken animal remains. Unlike performance form that is said to predate live actors. She Frankenstein's monster, each are individually christened also began to concentrate on constructing more with fanciful names and welcomed into the artist's intricately jointed, fully movable and adjustable body conjured cosmos: "I do think of them as pets and parts, even to the extent of making some spring-loaded. friends…that is why I name them, rather than 'title' These devices figure prominently in Artemas and Antipas them. At a certain point when building a new piece, they (1999), a pair of fur-ruffed bird-turtles, Lopo (2000), an start to reveal their own unique personality. They begin ivory-toed canine creature evocative of a prancing to breathe."41 poodle, Padeloup (2000), a gawky combo of long-legged In addition to marionettes, antique toys Joslin shore bird and turtle, Pardo (2001), a suspended leather- collected long ago, as well as those she has spotted in eared hare whose delicate, elongated toes are books, museums and antique shops, have also provided completely jointed and Ferdinand (2002), an avian being with a fully movable head whose body is constructed 40 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus from a turkey breast (London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818). 41 Translated from the original Spanish, Metal, "Jessica 39 From recorded telephonic interview with artist by author, Joslin/Bestiario y joyería para todos los públicos," No. 3, October 3, 2007. November, December, January 2006-07, p.15. 92
an ample source of inspiration for her work, as is moved, its neck quivers. No picture can convey the fact evidenced by the classic stance and carriage of many of that the legs and necks of flamingoesque Candido & Joslin's sculptural characters. Most obvious is Lula Caprice (2005), which measure 3 feet in height, are freely (2001), a skeletal saddled horse with rolling casters for moveable. In stark contrast, sweetly delicate Scarlett hooves. Imbert (2002), a sleepy-eyed, long-toed monkey (2005), inclusive of her fringed shelf, is a mere 4 inches in creature playing cymbals, and its companion, Capio height and could well perch on the viewer's finger. (2002), pose in instantly recognizable positions so Jessica Joslin's body of work fits into a time- characteristic of 19th century play objects, as do ball- honored art historical tradition of rendering animated clutching Lupe (2001) and Marco (2006). skeletons, which dance through the pages of anatomical While many of Joslin's creatures are strange altases from the 16th to the 18th century.43 Infused with hybrids embodying the characteristics of many different a sense of spectacle and theatricality, the fantastic and animals, some of them are, in fact, modeled closely after the incongruous, her alchemical creations can be likened a particular species. Two obvious examples are Lacy to those classical vanitas paintings that incorporate (2004), Joslin's version of a ring-tailed lemur, and Candido materials gently reminding us of our ultimate mortality or, & Caprice (2005), an avian duo unquestionably related to alternatively, to the end result produced from a solitary flamingos. However, for Joslin, a viewer's own Surrealist game of cadavre exquis.44 They also might well experiential background and psychological response to have escaped from some alien natural history museum the work is as important as what her forms may suggest. diorama, a strange Victorian circus sideshow or a 19th "There definitely aren't any right answers," the artist century engraving of cavorting calaveras by José points out. "The degree to which the existing pieces are Guadalupe Posada.45 Bursting with life, they seduce by modeled after a particular species -- I think that that's an piquing curiosity, inspiring awe, evoking laughter and element more about an individual piece than a specific eliciting pathos, often simultaneously. At the very least, progression. The earlier work is much less based on they are a contemporary, three-dimensional continuation specific species and as time goes on it's more deliberate. of man's artful obsession with seeing what lies inside the There are certain pieces that are very much modeled living. after a particular species as a starting point and there are 42 others that are much more of a hybrid." Before you began your work on your creatures, Well-schooled collectors take delight in spotting you trained as a photographer. How do you think Joslin's twists on natural order, which are based on the your photographic perspective has influenced artist's intentional disregard of known and demonstrable your work in a three-dimensional medium? characteristics of animal anatomy. Her versions are rife with physical anomalies, usually sporting only three toes, My photographic work set the standard for my in frank violation of nature's ordinary set of rules. A sculptures in terms of the level of detail as well as the spidery creature like Vesta (2000), composed of, among specific types of materials used. As a photographer, I other things, assorted brass lamp parts, a wood finial and created images of minuscule constructions, which umbrella spokes, rests on six legs instead of the usual incorporated various organic and man-made elements. eight associated with the average predatory arachnid. Of For example, the illuminated edge of a horseshoe crab course, Joslin's beasts being completely skeletal in form would sprout metallic spines instead of bony appendages, flies in the face of the veridical, unless you've taken up or the underside of a skull would be intricately wired permanent residence in director Tim Burton's fantasy with miniature circuitry. For my photographs, I worked film world. primarily with large and medium format cameras, using Reproducing any intricate three-dimensional macro lenses, so that the object could be magnified form using a two-dimensional medium is inherently enormously. This required a precision in construction limiting, especially with regard to scale, which, in Joslin's and a miniaturization of detail that carried over into my work, is often skewed or wholly inapposite to anything present work. occurring in the natural world. A still photograph also is unable to capture a work's enchanting ability to move or 43 to be repositioned. For example, photographically Deanna Petherbridge and Ludmilla Jordanova, The Quick Cicadidae (2006) looks to be the average cicada, when in and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy (London: Hayward actuality it is more raptor that insect, having an Gallery and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), astounding 6-inch wing span. Images of Francesca ( exhibition catalog, p. 27. 44 Cadavre exquis, which is French for "exquisite corpse," is 2002), the artist's marvelously engineered riff on an the name of a game created by the French Surrealists in the ostrich, fail to transmit the fact that the piece is an almost 1920s, based on an old parlor game, in which a group of life-sized 5 feet 8 inches tall, has a spring-loaded jaw that people create a collective collage of images or words, snaps in true ostrich-like fashion and is so flexible, that if exploiting the mystique of accident to plumb the unconscious. 45 José Guadalupe Posada (1851-1913) is a well-known Mexican printmaker famous for his socially satiric Day of the 42 From recorded telephonic interview with artist by author, Dead engravings in which all characters are portrayed as October 3, 2007. skeletons. 93
Jessica Joslin Virgil & Ace - Admiral & Luce 2008, Antique brass findings and hardware, bone, leather, velvet, antique pony harness, vestment trim, brass sequins, bullet casings, chain, silver, snakeskin, chain, glass eyes. 42”x17”x22” Jessica Joslin 94
Your sculptures are made from both natural and moveable. What does that transition symbolize in man-made materials. Do you rely on a specific terms of a change in your artistic statement, and balance of each type of material to maintain how does it alter the way the animals may be equilibrium between real and fake? interpreted?
It’s interesting to consider the word “fake” as used to They are a means of introducing a secret, interactive describe parts of the anatomy that are formed from element into my work. They are an aspect that is not metal, as if the material itself was striving to become readily discernible through images, or even when viewing something other than metal…perhaps it is. That’s a the work in person, except to those who have sharp wonderful thought, brass that dreams of being bone. All eyes and some understanding of mechanics. When you of the materials, whether organic or man-made, must be look closely, you can see clues like springs and hinges. It transformed once they are incorporated into a piece. is a way of quietly implying motion and animation. It That is how I find a sense of balance between so many seems appropriate to me that an animal like an ostrich or disparate elements, every part needs to become more an emu should be able to snap it’s beak, or that a than what it was. flamingo’s neck should bend and flex. Those are defining The metalwork mimics natural structures, but it characteristics. It is also a way to imply interaction that is does so as a line drawing in the air. The forms are vastly not static, not predefined. Many of my creatures can be simplified. The body contours are distilled from a posed in several positions, thus their interactions with combination of internal and external forms, a each other, and with the viewer, are changeable. combination of skeletal structure and the silhouette of a In some ways, the more significant adaptation living animal. I rarely interpret skeletal anatomy literally; it was in terms of poses, not movement, although the two is shifted to suit the rest of the figure. For the sake of adapted simultaneously and symbiotically. Together, they proportion, leg bones are often greatly enlarged, ribcages signaled a shift in my initial reference material and a shift streamlined and spines shaped into an exaggerated and in the demeanor of the animals. In earlier works, the sinuous s-curve. If one were to look at images of animals poses that my creatures took were fairly symmetrical and with the skeleton superimposed upon the outer rigid. They were influenced by very early taxidermy, silhouette, that is how I define my forms; the lines of a which was not always naturalistic in terms of pose. As my piece hit critical points along each level of structure to work progressed technically, I began to adopt more fluid, give a sense of fluidity and movement. naturalistic poses and my initial reference images were Although fluid integration is critical, I want at more frequently of living animals. Clearly, my work is not least some of my materials to be discernible in the intended to be a naturalistic representation, but I feel finished product. Thus a chandelier arm becomes a spine, that in recent years, it incorporates more of the brass bullet casings become birds’ toes, and a letter characteristics of living animals, in terms of poses as well opener becomes the tail of a parrot. Alternately, some as behavioural tics and quirks. To me, they have more of materials are so changed that they become an illusion of life and movement and a sense of character. unrecognisable, like the ribcages formed from the cut In terms of a change in artistic statement, I suppose it’s and re-shaped metal of antique pierced silver bon-bon like the historical shift in taxidermy that came when Carl trays. One would not recognize them until their origin is Akeley began to develop new ways of representing and described, but the intricate cutwork that remains mimics interpreting form. It didn’t change the media a individual ribs and vertebrae. It is through these visual fundamental way, in terms of the intent, but it did change transformations that I find an equilibrium that works in the physical way that it was manifested. my world. There is something strangely ritualistic about It is easy to imagine that these creatures exist in applying a new skin (made from the kid leather from an imaginary world. Is that how you think of antique opera gloves) to an animal skull. The skin has them? What would this world be like? been far removed from its original form; its associations are of elegance, not of flesh. I use this leather to fashion From time to time, hints of their world are incorporated the eyelids that give expression to the eyes, to sculpt into the display of the pieces. Egon, 2008, a small ears (edged with fur from vintage stoles) and sometimes monkey, is displayed swinging from a cast metal branch to create decorative hoods or headpieces. Whether it is with long brass leaves and Vida, 2008 a tropical bird, sits with a (literal) skin, or a skin made from a delicate tracery perched upon a leafy spray. I imagine my beasts as living of brass filigree, both transfigure the skull. Afterwards, it within a lushly fecund garden, contained within a appears to be something different, something that gives Victorian era glass paned conservatory. The plant life is the illusion of life and animation; the skull is not only a formed from intricately detailed brass and silver, skull anymore, it is a face. representing a myriad of species in different configurations. Minuscule crystal dewdrops encrust the Around the year 2000, you began constructing leaves and drip off the edges, held by tiny wires. Insects pieces that were increasingly jointed and like Cicadidae, 2006 and butterflies of unexpected colors
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fly through the air and alight atop flowers formed from search for one that seems to suit the character of the glass. (Since this is my fantasy moment, the glass flowers creature. It’s not that different than naming pets or would be crafted by the Blaschkas.) Lautrec, 2008, a bat, children I suppose, I choose names that please me and swoops through the air, and alights upon the graceful seem to suit the character of the piece. truss-work and folds his wings. Heavy velvet curtains lead into a second In the original cabinets of curiosities of past chamber, where there are three small circus rings with centuries, the viewer was not meant to constellations of pinpoint lights trained upon them. There sympathize with the creatures on display – only are several acts being practiced simultaneously. Gustav, to marvel at their oddity. Cabinets of curiosities 2008, does tricks on his tricycle to the accompaniment of have clearly inspired you, but by naming your a player piano. Lupe, 2005 does balancing acts with a ball, pieces and by referring to them as pets or while her twin partner, Fiala, 2005 pulls a two headed friends, you seem to reject the clinical bird, Lartet, on a tiny cart. Two harnessed and saddled detachment that was inherent in the original emu, each with a small monkey-like jockey (Admiral & format. What can we learn from the distinct ways Luce and Virgil & Ace, 2008) prepare to race, while the you embrace – and reject – the original cabinets other animals cluster around to enjoy the show. of curiosities?
As with historical cabinets of curiosities, my work springs You have said that you think of your pieces as from a desire to find some sense of understanding of the pets and friends. If these animals did exist, do natural world through collecting, to find a sense of you imagine this is the relationship they would control over the unfathomable through placement and have with humans (as opposed to food animals, organization, and to elicit a sense of wonder by wild animals, etc)? exhibiting the unusual. The term Wunderkammer (literally “wonder rooms”) describes the intent of these None would be food animals; they have no flesh. Many collections, to inspire wonder. That neatly summarizes of them are performing animals, although some might be the first reaction that I hope to achieve with my work, wild (at least occasionally) because they lack the signifiers the means by which to draw the viewer in closer. of domesticity: collars, cuffs and caps. Although they are My collecting started early and was inspired, in animals, I see them as something “other” because they part, by a dearly beloved museum, the Harvard Museum are primarily mechanical constructions. They might give of Comparative Zoology. Before I could begin to the illusion of life, but they are built of parts either dead understand why, I was enraptured by its stately halls, or inanimate. In their current manifestation, their lined with dark wood cases of exotic specimens from all relationships with humans need not be as troubled as if reaches of the world. At home, we created our own they were flesh and blood animals. They cannot feel pain cabinet of curiosities. The main “rule” that sharply or fear. Those may have been present in their first life, differentiated it from traditional collections, was that we but in my world, they are content. They enjoy doing only included specimens that we had found ourselves. tricks and wearing costumes. Their interactions with Objects could not be bought and it went without saying humans are infused with affection, whimsical humor and that nothing could be killed for inclusion. All of our quirky charm. They make me want to protect them and specimens were collected on our many hikes through keep them from harm; somehow, that feels appropriate. the woods, walks on the beach and discovered on our They have died once and been brought back out of love. travels. It turned our explorations of the natural world I don’t always know what their first life may have been into one big treasure hunt. We were always on the like, but this time around, I want them to be protected lookout for something new, something different. In that and appreciated. sense, it was quite similar to the cabinets of antiquity. We were intent on including the widest variety of Many of the pieces are named after mythological specimens and including the most possible natural beings. Do you keep a particular mythology in variants. However, our search was focused on finding, mind as you create each piece, or do you name not taking. That is the critical distinction. It is a very them after they are finished? different sort of personality that feels entitled to take a living bird in order to stuff it and put it in a cabinet; that I collect names, just as I collect brass hardware, bones feels the need to take beauty. We always took great care and all of the other materials that I work with. The not to disturb anything during our explorations. names originate from genealogical research (many are My interest in, and attitudes about, working with named after my own ancestors), from biographical animal bones are based on these early discoveries. It was dictionaries, from other artists, from characters in novels a very specific type of interaction. I would find a sun- and from acquaintances. When I come upon a name that bleached bone on a rock and marvel at its beauty. It I love the sound of, I write it in a big book. When a engendered a quiet sense of marvel at the intricacies of sculpture is finished, I bring out my name book and anatomy, amplifying the excitement of discovery. It
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infused the skeletal remains with a sense of respect for artistic process is different when you use a real the creature that once lived. It was collecting to achieve a skull? In other words, does the presence of a sense of order and an acceptance of the cycle of life and real animal in your imagined creature change death. the creative process, or your relationship with the creature? A piece like Imbert (2002), in which a monkey plays the cymbals, suggests that you also draw There is a startling intimacy in working with real animal from cultural traditions and stereotypes to shape remains. One finds clues to the animal’s life embedded your animals. Do you use cultural iconography in within the bones themselves. It may be a fragment of your imagined creatures to comment on the buckshot from a long-ago run in with a hunter, which the status of real animals? bone has encased like a pearl. It may be a broken bone that has imperfectly mended, indicating that the creature The design of toys, particularly of the Victorian era, is may have walked with a limp. It may be an area of certainly one of my influences, as is the marvellous deformation and porosity on the skull that indicates that automata made by Pierre Jaquet-Droz and his the death was caused by a particular type of parasite. contemporaries. I see the parallel between my work and Being witness to these clues is humbling and magical, a other such mechanical representations of animals as a strange but intimate indicator of its former life. shared fascination with the fantastical and a sense of In other instances, there are animals that I am playful humor. The mechanical animal is a convenient drawn to recreate that are endangered or protected. In surrogate for the real animal. A clockwork monkey those cases, I use replicas. To me it doesn’t change the playing cymbals is a strange and delightful oddity; a real intent of the piece, but it does change the signifiers. monkey playing cymbals might not be very pleased about Because of that, I always try to make it difficult to it. I don’t see my work as necessarily being a distinguish which bones are real and which are fake. I commentary about animal rights; that is one facet of my think of replicas as an imperfect solution. They are never work, but not the primary concern. I am dealing in the quite as beautiful as real bones, but I can use them to realm of fantasy, with anthropomorphic animals and a create an illusion that is virtually seamless. strong sense of whimsy. Imagine, for a moment, that an archaeologist Your pieces walk an incredibly fine line between many centuries from now has stumbled upon your ‘the adorable’ and ‘the frightening’. Is this your creatures. Would you prefer that he or she intention, and do you see these extremes in real believes your creations are the skeletons of animals as well? extinct animals, or the fictional creatures we know them to be? Why? Yes, of course. That is a fascinating aspect of representations of animals and how they play to our I wouldn’t want them to be mistaken for skeletons; that perceptions and misconceptions. Animals often embody seems a bit far-fetched. I do, however, enjoy the idea of qualities of both extremes. An item of news that caught confusion about their origin, purpose, and the time my attention was regarding a tourist at the Beijing zoo; period in which they were constructed. I like the idea he had entered the cage of a panda bear and attempted that an archaeologist might imagine them to be far older to hug it. He was mauled. We may find certain attributes than they are. I have extraordinary respect for the of animals adorable, but it doesn’t often reflect an craftsmanship of times past, so I would see that as a huge accurate perception of their demeanor; many are compliment. predators, they kill to survive. The qualities that we typically find frightening are usually related to their Over time, has the creation of these creatures capacity as a hunter. Modern humans are usually changed the way that you see or interact with squeamish about such things. Many of us kill for food, but real animals? only by proxy; we prefer the gory aspects to be masked, to stay out of our minds. Animals don’t seem to censor I often think about their structure as I’m looking at them. or rationalize their needs, they do what they are driven I’ll be sitting, cuddled up with a friend’s dog, and I’ll find to do. I find these qualities compelling, particularly when myself thinking about where its bones are, relative to its used in contrast against each other. Large eyes and position, looking at the angles that the limbs form. Those flamboyant plumage may seem charming and childlike, angles are critical for my work. If the pose isn’t fluid, it but to me, it is overly sweet when lacking talons as doesn’t have the feeling of being about to spring to life. contrast. Because of the type of work that I make, the animals that I meet are muses to me. You use both real and recreated skulls in your pieces, but the difference between them is imperceptible to viewers. Do you find that the Are you working on anything new?
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Jessica Joslin Brass, bone, glove leather, fur, glass eyes 3.5"x11"x4.25" Jessica Joslin
Yes, although I recently finished a show, so I’m not yet working towards a specific theme for my next body of work. My current exhibition, for Billy Shire Fine Arts in
California, is entitled “Clockwork Circus.” It draws from the whimsical, decadent aesthetic of the fin de siecle circus; performing animals are a strongly recurring theme in my work. For that show, I created a tiny chihuahua in a tufted hat and leather vest, riding a tiny tricycle; ornate tropical birds in hanging brass hoop perches; twin emu, intricately saddled and harnessed, like show horses, with monkey-like riders seated astride; and many, many others. At the moment, I’m working on a series on tiny polycephalic turtles, inspired by photos of real animals that I’ve been collecting for years. I was fascinated by the myriad of ways for the twins to be joined. Some have the anatomy of a normal turtle, but with an extra head; some are joined at the midpoint. They have a bilaterally symmetrical shell with a head looking out of each end of the shell like a push-me-pull-me toy; some have skulls and a shell that is partly split laterally and separates only at the front end. So many fascinating creatures to explore, so little time!
Jessica Joslin was born in Boston (1971) and grew up collecting flies on the windowsill to look at under her microscope. Ever since, she has been enchanted with collecting a magpie’s array of remnants from the natural world. In 1992 she began building the first beasts of her managerie. Aside from being an artist, Jessica works as a commercial model maker, building prototypes of toys, alternatively working as a model maker, machinist , mold maker and sculptor. She lives and works in Chicago.
Jessica Joslin was interviewed by Antennae in winter 2008 Antennae To find more information please visit www.jessicajoslin .com 98
THE B EAST-MACHINE
FABLE AUX
This issue of Antennae comes to a close with an original animal philosophy based steampunk fable by experimental writer Matthew Chrulew Text by Matthew Chrulew
Leaning over his cluttered workshop bench in a moment latest creation—which, he hoped, would serve in his of whimsical reverie, the tinkerer held up a skeletal lion’s tableau of “The Lion Beaten by the Man” as retold in paw in one hand, and with the other, flicked away at its book III of La Fontaigne’s Fables—had thus far eluded his retractable claws. “’Tis mine, truly, as lion alone,” he skill. To have the beast converse with its human mockers muttered as he pulled at the first. It flipped back feebly, was one thing; long had his “animals” held forth and he prodded the next. “Also, the second to me loquaciously on all variety of topics. But to have it paint a should belong,” he said. “By the right of the strong. And picture of a lion defeating a man in combat? Something in again, as the bravest, the third. And whoso might but the mechanics of the African king’s digits prevented the touch the fourth…?” His pointer finger on the easy gripping of a brush. quaternary claw, he gazed around at the corpses, models, But oh well. He had never realistically expected automatons and skeletons that occupied his small vault in that display to be ready by today’s fête. There was more various states of assembly, as if daring them to impinge than enough already on offer. By next month, however, on his lion’s share. Then suddenly he shouted: “I’ll choke when it was rumoured that the King himself might attend him to death in the space of a breath!” the tinkerer’s now famous Fableaux, rather than just his He looked around as if he might have startled envoys… Hopefully by then he would have solved the someone with his roar, but of course he was alone, but problem of the opposable claws. No doubt, for never for his assorted simulacra. Only from the very corner did before had his artisanry been hindered for any great he hear a small commotion: a peep from one of his period; well, not at least since he had perfected the replica rats, programmed to frighten at loud noises, and techniques which made of his beast-machines not only various squeaks and shufflings from some real claimant of the most flawless copies of their wild counterparts but, the murid species, who did the same by nature. He what is more, able further (in seeming contradiction of smiled and placed the paw back among the other the very principles of their creation) to speak the most leonine parts arranged in the rectangular space he had perfect King’s English, as if (and here was where freed from the litter. They rested atop the large image he controversy now followed his every step) thus having had copied from Perrault’s Mémoires, each organ proved themselves capable of language and reason, it corresponding to its two-dimensional representation and might be supposed that the things possessed souls. indexed with its alphabetised nomination: oesophagus, The tinkerer, of course, knew such to be upper and lower jaws, heart and lungs, et cetera. nonsense; but he nonetheless delighted in the infamy it Of course, he had by needs amended the afforded him. illustrations with his own observations, taken (as the He pulled his timepiece from his pocket and philosopher suggested) during his own dissection of a opened the embellished face. “An hour and a quarter lion, purchased (as his own wits made possible) from a past noon,” the fob said to him; jolted thus into action, German animal-trader of ill repute. Thus revised, the the tinkerer gathered some items and emerged, sketches had heretofore served him well in the squinting, up the stairs of his workshop. Whereas below construction of his numerous lion-machines. But this lantern and diffused sunlight competed to be the most
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ineffectual source of light, here it was the full brightness on the vicissitudes of Descartes’ controversial philosophy. of day, and he blinked his way along the building wall and Then what next? he thought. “The Lion Beaten across the commons, until he came to the baroque by the Man”, of course, but afterwards…? Perhaps it garden in which his displays were assembled. He smiled would be possible, rather than having separate in satisfaction: already a goodly crowd was taking shape. automatons in an independent tableau for each fable, to Presumably the servants at the estate’s entrance had duly have a single model of each creature perform different been gathering the nominal fee. roles across many fables, changing between each act like With the minor fableaux already parroting, and a real actor, each species coming forward as their the major production set to begin at two o’clock, he had symbolic role was required. Such would surely be the less than an hour to check upon his toys, to ensure they most complex feat of engineering ever accomplished. He continued to function properly and that nothing had resolved that it was his alone to achieve. befallen them at the hands of the weather, the wilds, or He had travelled far and wide; had experience in the growing numbers of would-be saboteurs. Cartesians all methods of industry and engineering, when it came to and anti-Cartesians, poets and rationalists—all seemed to the production of moving machines and animal find something of offense in his displays. But beyond automatons. In his tours through France and Germany he simply smashing his machines, which he easily repaired, had witnessed the famed fountains and grottoes of there was little they could do; the only fellow who knew Salomon de Caus, in which singing birds and other his Secret had been left, fittingly he thought, in the hydraulic beast-machines provoked wonder in their bottom of a well with a goat. estate-owners and made of their creator a very rich man. He shuffled closer to a group which stood But he had gone far beyond de Caus’s mechanisms (as before one of his earliest dioramas. In it, Renard accosted also his wealth), perfecting the hydraulics with singular a black-feathered bird in whose beak was a morsel of fluids of his own discovery and extraction, and cheese. To the tinkerer’s delight, they laughed as the augmenting them with cogs and clockworks of the most raven, flattered by the fox, opened its mouth to perform intricate design. After all, what need did he have of his song, and the fox darted in to gather the cheese thus compressed water to power his animations, when he dropped, before turning to deliver some pithy advice to could control the very esprits animaux that worked in the his dupe. “What wondrous fabulations!” those gathered blood, brain and organs of animal bodies? cried. “What buffoonery!” “Surely he is a scientist-poet!” It was the other, more clandestine strand of his “Such a marvel of artifice! Animal-machines that speak!” research that—after much furtive travel through Europe’s The tinkerer moved on quickly, lest they occult underground and Hebrew diaspora—had recognise him. At the next fableau, another group also provided the key to this final and infinitely valuable piece chortled as the fox, unable to reach some grapes, to his puzzle. concluded that they were sour, anyway. Next were two (One day, he sometimes hoped, he would also cages, each holding what to all inspection appeared a master the esprits animaux of humankind; he knew to monkey. A sign between them challenged the skeptical what use such knowledge could be put; though thus far viewer to distinguish the automaton from the real animal. their complexity had proved itself beyond his artifice.) Before it two men dutifully contradicted each other as to Before him a group of philosophers, aesthetes, which ape was the more authentic. Following this display and other dilettantes traded words as they watched his of his cleverness, the tinkerer passed more fableaux: displays. He recognised a few of them from the city’s “The Wolf and the Dog”, “The Cat and the Rat”, “The salons and cafés, where the existence of animal minds Lion and the Gnat”, and “The Wolf Accusing the Fox was currently debated vociferously. He never felt obliged Before the Monkey”, all of which seemed to amuse (at to stoop so low as to engage in their merely academic the very least) their audience. disputations; but he did enjoy to listen. He paused before his favourite, “The Wolf “Surely you do not suggest,” scoffed one young Turned Shepherd”. The tinkerer loved to watch as his mustachioed philosopher, “that beasts can speak. It is the wolf narrated clearly his attempts to disguise himself as a purest folly!” shepherd but then, when it came time to imitate the His interlocutor, clad in an ornamented hat of shepherd’s voice to drive away the sheep, suddenly the latest fashion, held out his palms. “And I would agree, found himself able only to cry pathetically in his own had I not but seen it for myself! Do not mistake me for wolfish tones. The crowd laughed at the irony, for of that fool Montaigne, who followed the Ancients in course, his wolf-machines were perfectly able to mimic supposing animals to speak a language we do not human speech, as the narrator had just proved; contrary understand. Of course the song of a bird, or the barking to the moral of that fable, there was no leakage of deceit of a dog, simply express their animal passions, and are in the tinkerer’s fableaux. not to be confused with human speech, through which That was something special, but it would be reason speaks. But the automatons here: they speak outdone soon, when he would present his maiden properly, and tell fables!” performance of “The Two Rats, the Fox, and the Egg”, “That is precisely the point. He has created La Fontaigne’s famous address to Madame de la Sablière beast-machines, programmed mechanical animals, that
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demonstrate that it is only through the voice of human to narrate his crowning tale, stood the weed-thin reason that animals can be made to speak! As Descartes silhouette of his rival, Renoit. By all rights, he should have shows us, animals are nothing more than machines.” been deceased, his bones mingled in tepid water with “It seems,” scoffed a priest among them, “that those of a goat. But here he stood, leaning over with his our friend Peterson looks upon Cartesianism as the very treacherous mouth by the fox’s large ear, whispering embodiment of Reason.” something… He, the only other living being to know the “And thinks himself,” added another, “the very tinkerer’s Secret of the esprits animots! embodiment of Cartesianism.” Chortles rippled the The tinkerer rushed forward, uttering vengeful company. “Except, of course, for his very body, mute profanities, but found himself stopped short by a sabre- clock that it is.” One fellow snorted at that. point at his throat. Renoit continued to whisper his Peterson simply gazed upon them with his left disruptive magics into the fox-machine, an exultant smile brow raised almost perpendicular to his right. “You may playing at his eyes, the blade casually abutting his limp- mock, gents—” seeming wrist. Shocked and enraged as he was, the “Indeed, we do!” tinkerer knew better than to challenge him. Foxy the frog “—but my argument stands for itself. That may be, but (the scars on his chest reminded him) animals are mere clockwork is demonstrated before your wolfish too. very eyes. These so-called speaking voices are simply the He had first come across Renoit during his result of bodily movements, mechanical actions like the Continental travels, on a visit to some minor Prince’s jerking of a limb; all perfectly understandable as an effect menagerie. There, to one side of the animals so rationally of motion, subject to nature’s laws like the rest of the displayed, tabulated according their characteristics, this extended world.” broomstick of a Frenchman had set up his farcical “Granted,” returned his original opponent. “But pageant. “Come one, come all,” he had cried, “to see La the fact that through such mechanisms he is able to Fontaigne’s fables performed by real, live animals!” The produce the equivalent of human speech… Do you not tinkerer had laughed as Renoit’s pathetic beasts were set see the reductio ad absurdum thus created? I am afraid upon the stage, so disgracefully clothed and prodded. one of the premises of your precious Frenchman must Not a single one performed as wished: they dumbly ran, be rejected—may I suggest, perhaps, that of the hid and moped in corners, fought one with another, fell uniqueness of human reason?” asleep, shat and pissed, and even died, failing to live up to “But they do not speak reason, but nonsense— their true symbolic meanings. It was an absurd spectacle; fables such as any artist could conjure… Only poets and but it had set the tinkerer to thinking, and then to much fools would still imagine beasts who speak.” work, and subsequently to wealth and fame… When “Not imagine—create!” next they crossed paths, Renoit had got in his head the “Nothing but irony and trompe l’oeil.” idea of a most preposterous disputation, following which “Nothing but! Is there anything of more they had contended many times, until (the tinkerer consequence?” thought) his final victory. But now… Happily lost in the to-and-from of their He breathed in deeply, watching his fableau argument, the tinkerer was surprised to find his arm evaporate before him. “I should never have given you being tugged almost from his body. He looked down to the opportunity of escape,” he said. see one of the urchins in his employ, his regular Renoit could not resist turning momentarily from dishevelment reduced, for the occasion, to a mere hint his infernal whisperings. “You, of all people, should have of scruffiness. “Milord, milord, come quick! There’s known that I would live up to the fable.” He once more someone what wants t’interfere with your animals!” poked his large nose into the fox’s ear. “What, boy?” The tinkerer gave him a short clip “You only ever failed—” The tinkerer was about the neck, if only to stretch out his over-yanked shocked from his retort by a figure slamming into Renoit arm. “You were to stand guard by the animatons!” from outside his vision, knocking the Frenchman into the “Yes, milord, but y’see, you said t’me, if another ground and away from the fox. The tinkerer jumped up what wants t’pay me t’let them past, then I…” to rescue his creation, only to find the sabre once more “What I said, lad, in a clear understatement, was slashing at him. He lept back to see Renoit now stood that you should at least pay me the courtesy of informing with his wits full about him, having grasped the wriggling me, so that I might have the opportunity to match or and screaming street urchin by the neck. He brought his better their bribe…” But before even finishing his blade to the boy’s stomach and made to pierce him, sentence, he could see from the urchin’s face that he when—thwack! Renoit crumpled to the ground; the had, of course, already taken the bribe, before coming to streetboy scrambled away. Behind them stood a warn his master. Reminding himself never to work with bluecoat, sap in hand, seemingly disgruntled from the children again, he rushed to the grotto where his star exertion. The King’s private royal guard; that meant… performers were set aside. “Good sir,” the rather large and serious minder There he saw a most horrific spectacle: next to said as he leant down to gather Renoit over his shoulder. his most complex creation yet, the fox who was shortly “His Majesty does look forward to your performance.
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You will not make me tell Him that this minor with his tongue, and felt the spirit of that guttural interruption has spoiled his afternoon’s enjoyment, will language pass through him… you?” He awoke to the bruised grin of his young “N… no, of course,” he said. would-be rescuer. “Milord, milord. The peoples are “Good.” The guard trundled off with Renoit getting impatience!” The tinkerer jumped up and grabbed doubled at the waist. his automaton. He looked about. “Put him in the cage with the monkey,” yelled “The others? The stag, partridge, beavers? The the tinkerer after them. “Either one!” He turned to his rats, the egg?” fox, strewn on the ground; it seemed undamaged in “In place, milord. We just need y’self!” form, but inside, what new animal spirit-words had his He raced back to the main arena where the rival introduced? crowd gathered, among them the concealed King. With much trepidation, he pulled gently on the Thankfully, one of his servants had had the presence of fox’s tail, to begin its routine. The fox opened his mouth, mind to replay “The Mice and the Owl”, with his and began to recite: “The great are like the maskers of wonderful wise bird flying above the crowd carrying his the stage; their show deceives the simple of the age…” trapped legless mice and daring the Cartesians among At that line, the tinkerer knew just what evil Renoit had them to pronounce him a mere machine. The tinkerer performed. rushed to place his fox among the other performers, and “The fable of ‘The Fox and the Bust’?” He shook withdrew behind the fountain, into his control booth. Sat his fist after his dispatched rival. “You thought to upon his chair, levers and pedals at hand, he was much embarrass me in front of the King, mocking His Majesty (he liked to think) like Orpheus with his lyre, or (to be and insulting us both?” more Christian) like Adam in the Garden, or even (to be In his hands, the fox continued: “… all their glory truly modern) like the soul in the pineal gland. is a semblance thin.” The tinkerer struck out, silencing it Hopefully, his reason had prevailed, properly before it could finish the tale with that perfidious remark governing the performance of his fox. comparing lords to brainless busts. What to do? He He looked up and searched through the crowd reached for his fob, just as the bells pealed twice from to perhaps catch a glimpse of the King, but unable to find the nearby chapel. He cursed. Already it was time for the him, gave up, deciding that after all it was best not to performance to begin. know. From the corner of his eye saw that within one of There was nothing for it; he must overturn the monkey cages was another, skinny ape, who railed at Renoit’s vile words. Never before had he composed him in a familiar animal gibberish. He cast his eye over esprits animots in such haste. He remembered the night the automatons, got a gap-toothed smile and crooked he had wrested the secret from that Jew in a Parisian thumbs-up from his serving-boy, and nodded to back-alley. The fearful Kabbalist had desparately muttered himself—all was ready to begin. his own combinatorials in a last-ditch attempt to induce He pulled at a lever, at which what seemed a his golem to defend him, but the superior had prevailed. root in the ground yanked the fox’s tail, whose pointed That whole episode, particularly the unfortunate accident maw began to move in strange mockery of human that had subsequently befallen the poor man, still speech. The tinkerer waited with foreboding, but the occasionally woke the tinkerer at night; but he comforted fox’s monologue began as designed, with flattery for the himself with the thought that, like his bête-machines, it lady to whom the fable was addressed. As always, the had yet to be proved that Jews were capable of rising crowd rippled with delight (as, subsequently, did he) at above their base desires to incarnate human reason. the speech of an animal supposed to produce only He, now, must do better. The performance must repetitive noises. The narrator-fox went on to mention a go on. The King was waiting. certain controversial new philosophy that he might He ran through the fable in his mind, imagining contest. “Perhaps you have not heard of it?” he said, with the movements of the fox’s tongue required to make the discreet politeness—as of course she had. sounds, and translating them backwards into the motion “My verse will tell you what it means: required to pass as animal-spirits from his brain. Not that “They say that beasts are mere machines; foxes have language, of course; rather, these words were “That, in their doings, everything, simply part of the fox’s machinic body, cogs themselves “Is done by virtue of a spring— in the minute clockwork of his automaton’s brain, all of “No sense, no soul, nor notion; which was continuous with the extended world. If he “But matter merely—set in motion, could properly compose the code of esprits animots, the “Just such the watch in kind, mélange of fox-whimpers and human tongues, then this “Which joggeth on, to purpose blind.” cipher would enter the pineal fluids he had extracted The tinkerer breathed a sigh of relief. His spirit- from various test subjects, and translate itself (purely words had worked; the beast spoke as intended. He through force of motion, however complex) into the imagined how it would irk La Fontaigne to see his anti- hydraulics of its body and thus to its mouth. His lips at Cartesian speech performed by such stupid machines! the fox’s pointy ear, he cleared his mind, played about And so the fable progressed, mocking the celestial
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Descartes, before beginning its examples of clever bodyguard leading away a man who shook his head in animals: the hunted stag, the artful partridge, the discontent. And he looked up to see that the group of industrious beavers, the military creatures. His beloved philosophers on whom he had previously eavesdropped animatons scampered dutifully about the arena, even as now stood over him. the vulpine raconteur described them; and the tinkerer “’Tis almost as if,” one said, “in his very attempts to pulled levers here and there for background effects, transcend the beasts, he has been reduced to their pumped hydraulics to initiate the fountain, pressed level.” buttons to set off his other automatons. He found that as Another laughed. “Too true. Between the he worked, the movements came with little thought, as if scientist’s machines and the poet’s fancies, they second nature. The ingenuity of brutes demonstrated, leave no room for actual animals.” the fox went on to nonetheless distinguish humans, “beasts perpendicular”, without for all that denying “Thankfully for us,” said a third, nodding animals their minds, or esteeming men too highly. sagely, “all machines, like all stories, indeed like any The tinkerer smiled as his animals spoke, creation, can in the end be broken down.” perfectly, truly, unlike any real mute beast; and with each word they demonstrated the genius of his artifice, beyond anything nature had produced, beyond even the greatest works of scientists or poets. Orpheus indeed! he thought as he pulled at his levers. I have decoded the grand book; I sing the song of the universe. I have squeezed from nature her very secrets. The crowd laughed at the rat, on its back, holding an egg twice its size, as its cohort dragged it away by the tail. Giving up the chase, the fox turned once more to its audience and remarked on the ingenuity of the scurrying pair. The tinkerer turned to concentrate on his controls. The climax was near, when La Fontaigne’s own theory of soul would be illustrated by the analogy with fire. He hoped his pyrotechnics had not been tampered with. But as he reached for the next lever—and the fox ventured to compare animals to infants—he felt a strange impulse in his mind. As the fox spoke, so plainly close to his own voice, he heard the whimpers of a fox in his head—one he had dissected, perhaps, or its mother, which he had killed in order to remove the whelp to his own collection… These were the cries with which he composed the esprits animots, the animal spirit- words, made up of bestial yelps and grunts, meaningless nonsenses, as well as verbs and nouns from English, French and German, Greek, Latin and Hebrew, and strange tongues only Pentecost had seen… They welled up in his mind, and before he knew it he was babbling in a mechanical idiom— bzzzooneumahouahtsioumotcrawverbumeowordavargrrrkra geistyowlogosssssbaehhbehamahoogranimuspritierikibaraagy uribestiaruachawpeepanimeuhmiaouwortzifftschiwittspiritock oricowooooo…—pressing random buttons, and his fox was babbling too, the other animals running madly about the stage. Arcs of water sprayed from his fountains, and a firecracker squealed its way into the afternoon sky, booming a shower of burnt orange sparks over the audience. His fableau! His crowning performance! The crowd dispersed as some ran off, caught in a frenzy, Matthew Chrulew is researching a PhD in the Centre for Studies in while others commented one to the other in wry Religion and Theology and Monash University. His published writings bemusement. Three monkeys cackled excitedly from include speculative fiction short stories, as well as essays on animal two cages. To one side the tinkerer saw the King’s studies and contemporary medievalism.
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France Cdet FlyingPig from Dog[LAB]01, 2004
Antennae.org.uk Issue ten will be online on the 21st of June 2009
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