Performance + artist talk: Mimicry DIGI-Sense project
daniela brill estrada, Marko Markovic, Laura Stoll
In biology, mimicry occurs when an animal or plant resembles in color, form, or behavior another organism, usually aiming at hiding from it or hunting it. This performance piece plays with the idea of mimicry as a way of understanding human-machine interactions through movement, embodiment and sensible knowledge. How can we understand the process of making sense of robots as others, being the ones that control them, build them, decide their materiality and function? How can we make sense of a robot built for military purposes which also triggers emotions of empathy? How do we relate to technology that mimics living beings, in this case, to Spot©, a robot dog? What is the role of the body in this process?
This performance piece is realized In the context of the DIGI-Sense project, which focuses on sensemaking in digitization processes, especially in the interaction with digital twins and robotics. In “Mimicry”, artists Laura Stoll, daniela brill estrada and Marko Maković focus on the concepts of human/machine bodily endurance, proximity, and movements to investigate the functional extension of these technologies and discuss the meaning, purpose, and usage of robots in society. Considering safety measures and legal terms regulating the use of a robot, different parameters are of interest: What for and where is this type of technology used, and by whom?
Ethical implications regarding the responsibility of the one who has the control and power over the environment where such technology can be used for different means and purposes is a crucial element. Emotional response is driven by pattern recognition and empathy, cognitive skills that easily transfer even to machines which are arguably non-sentient.
For the human-machine performance at Improper Walls, the artists continue to intervene in the robot control navigation manual by employing such machinery for performance art and audience engagement. Transitioning from military to industrial and artistic usage, we closely observe the interaction between human and machine during practices of endurance and proximity, where each actor has a certain role to follow—or not to follow.
Laura Stoll | artistic works on the borders of philosophy, medicine and psychology. Builder of moulds and collector of human debris. Researches how we think about ourselves and the world and the limitations to all of that. Puts people deep asleep during operations.
Born in Innsbruck. Studied medicine at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin with a focus on psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience and philosophy at the Humboldt Universität Berlin with a focus on analytic philosophy and philosophy of mind. Holds a masters degree in Art&Science at the Universität für angewandte Kunst Vienna.
Marko Marković is an artistic researcher on collective engagement in self-organized societies creating autonomous models of coexistence with performative communication strategies. As an performance artist, independent curator and artistic producer, his interest was focused on international cultural exchanges with educational platforms in performance arts within the international performance festival DOPUST/ Days of open performance 2008 - 2018. (Croatia, US, and Austria). He was awarded YVAA/ Young Visual Artist Award in 2011. Marković worked in the artistic and film production and project coordinator of Matthew Barney Studio in New York (2012-2014). Marković presented his work at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition/ La Biennale di Venezia 2016, La Biennale di Venezia - Biennale Sessions Giardini 2019 and 2016 International Biennial Moscow, 2023 Kunsthalle Wien. Marković holds MA in Art & Science at the University of Applied Arts Vienna at the department where he worked as program coordinator for European Capital of Culture Rijeka 2020. He was visiting professor at UDK Berlin, Technical Uni Graz, Academy of Ars Zagreb, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and curator collaborator with Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka and mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
daniela brill estrada is a Colombian artist living and working in Vienna. Daniela’s creative processes are informed by her interest in sciences of complexity, aesthetics, and non-hierarchical structures of knowledge, and based on the idea of in-disciplinarity, constructed collaboratively with the Suratómica Network, which she co-created and currently co-organizes. Daniela works in collaboration with scientific institutions and networks such as the ORIGIN network of high energy physics at CERN, and with artistic institutions such as the ArtSci Center + Lab UCLA. Currently daniela is a PhD researcher for the project DIGI-Sense at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria.
DIGI-Sense is a research project realized at the JKU Linz, led by Claudia Schnugg and together with Prof. Christian Stary, head of the Institute of Business Informatics & Communications Engineering, and daniela brill estrada as the PhD student on the team.
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