Advancing into the 21st century, the lines between human and robot are increasingly blurred. This fuzziness elicits an array of complex emotional responses, just as it provokes technological questions.
Humans are social animals, and it’s no surprise our techno-lives are a complex entanglement of matter, flesh and bone, meat and metal, but also sensation – of isolation and ever presence.
This project represents that ambivalence as a rotating sculpture, which reads as both ‘human’ and ‘robot’, depending on the angle of viewing. It is presented as a kind of digital triptych, featuring three unique digital assets that play with different light in order to represent three different relational human archetypes:
Servant, Child, Lover.
These titles are chosen to represent three of the most evocative emotional relationships we can experience towards tech. Each of the three creates a sense of allure and excitement, but equally, distrust and fear – the paradoxical insecurity inherent in any human relationship.
What, or whom, will be of greater service to the other? When we die, will our faithful servant’s lights go out, too?
Could we learn to embrace a wayward child’s independence, knowing it might be our legacy?
What sort of coding could make us fall in or out of love? Are we biologically / hardwired to self destruct?