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Our Robot
Fundación Rodríguez |
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Our Robot
Fundación Rodríguez
The RODRIGUEZ
FOUNDATION ROBOT (track no. 3).
1.
OUR ROBOT is not overly prone to talk about himself. He goes
all quiet and distant when questions of identity come up, or
if people start to speculate about what place the word “personality”
takes within his operational system. We actually suspect that
he has a private chuckle when talks take the direction of these
subjects. And we are intrigued, or, to be more precise, worried
about this matter.
2.
We are currently preparing a video.
Here is the description of the sequence we will produce for
the purpose of the recordings, with the robot as the leading
character.
Location undefined.
Let us imagine that we place some of the theories that have
been used to justify theoretical approaches that emerge from
the cybernetic fold into a Hessian bag. Donna Haraway’s cyborg
theory might here take a forefront position in many of its possible
interpretations and reinterpretations, along with some of the
texts that have underpinned Stelarc’s work from reiterative
and contradictory perspectives, or selected notes concerning
experiments in genetic engineering and with a phosphorescent
rabbit. We could also add certain Foucaultian notions of biopower,
and various observations regarding the transition of post-fordism,
as formulated by Tony Negri and Paolo Virno, when they point
toward the thrusting power of a prosthetic and polymorphic information
system. This cocktail could then be spiced with quotations from
science fiction literature (Verne, Huxley, Asimov, Braxton…),
along with examples of writing on art and technology that have
appeared in catalogues and other publications over recent years.
It is important that in such writings subliminal mention of
the idea of the subliminal has appeared.
In addition, add some notes (droplets) about the purée that
cyberpunk imaginary tends to serve up and garnish it all with
Marxist titbits. The word “prosthesis” should appear at least
three times.
Thoughts on multiculturalism, performance theory and on structural
violence must also not be overlooked.
At a certain point, OUR ROBOT reaches with his cold hand the
bottom of the bag, and with one swift energetic movement, pulls
the bag inside out. All the theories get scattered over the
floor, some of them clinging to the fabric of the bag, others
carried away by the wind… There is a certain liberating aspect
about this performance.
Confronted with all this information that is as torn, dispersed
and fragmented as life itself, OUR ROBOT is thunderstruck (and
registering this, we too are thunderstruck…). Faced with all
these formulations about the technological artistic issue, the
surprising reaction of OUR ROBOT is an attempt to liberate all
the solemn discourses surrounding technological mythology, and
this with one single act. And so, through this one action that
nevertheless had to shoulder the whole unbearable weight of
the hermetically closed, OUR ROBOT desired to free himself of
something he has not yet managed to comprehend, although it
is part of his raison d’être.
And this is the panorama we are left with:
OUR ROBOT is in a space that bears no resemblance whatsoever
to the set from The Matrix, with a Hessian bag in his hand,
still gripped at the base, and there are papers – lots of papers
flying around
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Our Robot
Fundación Rodríguez |
It is the first act. OUR ROBOT is pensive. (And saying that
OUR ROBOT is pensive makes us pensive as well…)
Fade-to-black.
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Our Robot
Fundación Rodríguez |
3.
We observe that OUR ROBOT is delighted to interpret this scene,
because he “identifies” with the character. Perhaps this “feeling”
of identification is what is the most attractive point, and
it “integrates” him within a perceptive ambience he has not
previously known.
Having received OUR ROBOT’s response, we are disturbed by the
way in which he might process this experience, because we know
we have opened up a new world for him, launching him on a journey
of no return…
We are seriously considering not going ahead with this video
project.
Fundación Rodriguez
Artistic collective from Basque region, Spain, active in Victoria
Gaistez and San Sebastian
Tester Project,
initiated by Fundación Rodriguez, published in the book NODES
AT WORK (Copyleft) www.e-tester.net
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