This is the first time I contribute to this discussion. I am a visual
artist and art theorist. I am wrighting a book about skin as a
creative process ( "Epithelia, Creative Skins", "Les peaux créatrices"
in French).
I would like to react to your attached post, especially to the
expression "technologies of trust" as opposed to "mass surveillance",
at the end of your mail. I am wondering about the differences between
"technologies of trust" and "technologies we trust". Some artists tend
to explore these differences with a critical edge. Maybe these
differences echo the difference I see between "trans-human" and
"super-human". Technologies are producing modifications which
correlate biological and technological evolution. The emotions
brought by these changes are multiple, ranging from enthusiasm to
fear. "Trust" belongs to the positive realm of intersubjectivity,
whereas "surveillance" obviously does not. I tend to relate "trust",
intersubjectivity and "trans"-human, on one hand, as opposed to
"surveillance" and "super"-human.
I think an intersting way to look at cyborgs and robots is to question
their body : what kind of body do they have ?
Robots have been built to improve human physical or mental capacities.
Our interactions with machines have always produced modifications on
our own bodies in the long run. Biobots and cyborgs tend to bring new
forms of life, suddenly materializing these biological modifications
brought by technologies.
Here are 2 artworks which deal with these issues. The first one is a
robot, the second one a biobot.
"Alexitimia" by Paula Gaetano is a robot which produces transpiration
when you touch it. This is its only "function" and you have to
experience it through your own body touching it. Its body consists in
one organ which looks somehow like skin and performes a very slow
organic action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaKAdvaMP7w
http://www.noemalab.org/sections/specials/xxv_signorini_prize_robotic_art/paula_gaetano.html
The well known ongoing project "MEART" developped by SymbioticA (which
became "Silent Barrage" in a recent exhibition at ExitArt, NY) is a
biobot with a net-body. Neuron cells which are grown in a lab in
Atlanta react to video stimuli sent from a gallery space somewhere.
These visual stimuli are portraits of people (or body movements in the
last version). Their reactions stimulate a robot which produces
drawings in the gallery space. The video stimuli are going back to the
neurons which react again, etc. The perception-reaction loop ends when
the cellular culture dies.
http://www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au/project.html
I dont know if these artworks develope technologies of trust. They
certainly develope technologies of care.
Stéphane Dumas
Le 20 juil. 09 à 20:26, roger malina a écrit :
> Jorge
>
> I am not sure if i am ready to contribute to your declaration
> of machine rights, but it does raise the question of why cyborgs
> are often seen in terms of future evolution of humans rather than
> using other life forms as the starting point, or as you point out
> the devices themselves
>
> ramon guardans in his contribution to the darwin and the arts
> symposium in october
> :
>
> http://www.imera.fr/index.php/fr/flux-rss/110-22-octobre-colloque-qart-culture-theorie-de-levolutionq.html
>
> will talk about viewing evolution in terms of a plant centered view of
> succesful longevity
> on the planet- so that we should perhaps be looking at cyborgs in
> that context
>
> rob kranenberg in recent "internet of things" talks about indeed when
> human+ thing can be seen
> more as a symbiotic system neither of which can survive without the
> other
>
> http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/weblog/2008/10/02/book-launch-the-internet-of-things-by-rob-van-kranenburg/
>
> talks in detail about how we will start to co evolve with a vast array
> of 'things' in our environment
>
> The Internet of Things, Rob van Kranenburg outlines his vision of the
> future. He tells of his early encounters with the kind of
> location-based technologies that will soon become commonplace, and
> what they may mean for us all. He explores the emergence of the
> "internet of things", tracing us through its origins in the mundane
> back-end world of the international supply chain to the domestic
> applications that already exist in an embryonic stage. He also
> explains how the adoption of he technologies of the City Control is
> not inevitable, nor something that we must kindly accept nor sleepwalk
> into. In van Kranenburg's account of the creation of the international
> network of Bricolabs, he also suggests how each of us can help
> contribute to building technologies of trust and empower ourselves in
> the age of mass surveillance and ambient technologies.
>
> again it would be great to have examples of artists work that explores
> the issues
>
> roger
>
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