5 channel video installation, 2013, 8 min by Dominique Müller Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau Kunsthaus Langenthal Rote Fabrik, Zurich The video installation, consisting of five monitors facing each other in a circle, shows a group dialog between artificial people from different motion pictures. In the original movies they are mostly termed as ‘androids’. An android is a machine in human guise. It tries to seem human in external appearance as well as behavior, more so than a normal robot. A cyborg, being the coalescence of man and machine, aims to expand mere human skills. The android, on the other hand, is a man or woman that was created completely artificially. It tends to restrain its infinite technological capabilities, so as not to differ noticeably from mankind. Created by man, the humanoid robot is nevertheless treated as an object and used as a servant. It is frequently expected to preform tasks that are impossible, dangerous or just too menial for humans. The purpose of an automatic unit is to accomplish certain activities reliably and accurately within an optimal time frame (according to standards) – meaning: without human failure, fatigue, or vanity. A machine is infallible, but also replaceable. In the movies, human actors represent androids, because, after all, these machines would look just like a normal human being from the outside. An actor plays a machine, which sees its primary mission in seeming to be human. Inside, the android remains a technical automaton, and it is not accepted as a human individual. The actors, in their role as an android, are reminiscent of a high-performance society, in which humankind takes on mechanical tendencies in its desire for perfection. Despite all achievements, approval and appreciation decline. The video installation appropriates actions and statements from androids as presented in approximately 100 different movies. Without taking the stories of the single motion pictures into account, the material has been disengaged from its original context. What is left, are those questions and conflicts that separate man from machine. The film fragments were assembled into new dialogs on several channels. Sporadically, humans that create machines also appear, or those that just pretend to be a robot. The installation consists of five television sets that were removed from their casing and placed in a circle facing each other. The technical insides are in plain view and bestow unto the protagonists a physical as well as an exposed body. As if they were five beings come together just for this purpose, the mechanical creatures on screen comment on their conflicts with trying to be human. Confronted with emotions (such as love, hate, affection, contempt, joy, and sorrow), morality and decency, as well as life and death, the machines try to comprehend these human traits. Everything seems to be connected to the factor of time. But what is time? Time is what the mechanics of clockwork indicate or what a human perceives as memories between being born and dying. For a machine, though, time has no real meaning. It is everlasting. A robot cannot live nor die. All that makes a human being vulnerable is incompatible with the programming and logic mechanisms of a machine. Even if the android seems to approach human personhood step by step, it nevertheless fails in the end, being unable to perceive time as humans do because of its own “organic” immortality.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 10:53:38 +0000
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