Of artificial and artistic intelligence: Graz-based artist Niki Passath creates social situations between human beings and machines with unforeseeable outcomes.
With Niki Passath (AT)
Curated by Wenzel Mraček (AT), Arnold Reinisch (AT), Jani Schwob (AT)
Ever since the Industrial Revolution the world of work has undergone massive transformations, with artificial intelligence and robots supplanting entire occupational groups. These changes have been affecting substantial parts of our society for a long time. And yet this is but the beginning of an unpredictable development. The ever-growing ability of machines to learn and link up with each other – with no apparent human involvement – has been accompanied by ever-intensifying discussions on the (dis)advantages of a world in which machines, robots and various forms of artificial intelligence appear to be morphing into man’s equal partners.
Graz-born artist and robotics specialist Niki Passath transplants this man-machine relationship into the White Cube, thereby creating a touching symbiosis between biological and machine bodies. In the “Workshop” exhibition the artist presents and develops software-controlled robots which, while following predetermined choreographies, also react to their environment and to the audience. However, these machines live a (largely unpredictable) life of their own. Trial and error, development process and outcome, autonomy and interaction – these are the crucial parameters in an experimental situation which causes the exhibition to expand step by step.
Co-produced by steirischer herbst & Kunsthalle Graz
