DATAPOLIS @ Enter, 5th International Art | Science | Technology Biennale :: April 15-17, 2011 (Limited version of the exhibition will run until Sunday, April 24, 2011) :: Opening: April 14; 6:00 pm :: National Technical Library (NTK), Technická 6,160 80 Praha 6 - Dejvice.

DATAPOLIS is one evening and three days of full-size experiment in art and technology. The exhibition addresses interactions of media technologies, novel visualization practices and urban realities. Exhibiting artists from all over the world discover moods and rhythms of our cities, bodies and planet. They innovatively mash both visible and invisible data that re-present individual and collective lives and actions. Continue reading

Afflator — by Nick Knouf — breathes upon the conditions of today’s robotic creatures that are pulled into the muck of mimesis. To have a robot that is spoken to in natural language, that walks in a bipedal fashion, is the research that is valorised. Afflator deforms these conditions to suggest that the robotic form does not need to resemble anything we have seen before, that the means of engagement with a robot can be something other than traditional language and movement. Draping from the gallery ceiling and extending along the floor in a wave of fabric, Afflator unfolds onto contemporary robotics research to suggest other ethico-political options for engagement with the robotic other.

Extending from Afflator is a tube with an attached mask, worn by the gallery visitor to create a machinic assemblage of human and creature. Continue reading

NomadicMILK :: Opening: November 5, 2010; 6:00 - 9:00 pm :: Artist Talk: November 11; 2:00 pm :: African Artists’ foundation HQ, 54 Raymond Njoku street, Off Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Nigeria :: rsvp: omotayo.a (at) africanartists.org.

NomadikMilk, a project by visual artist, Esther Polak, focuses on tracing the mobility of milk in the Nigerian landscape. She does this by following the nomadic Fulani of Nigeria, as they transport milk in comparison to that of truck drivers hired by PEAK milk, a prominent brand in the country. The trail is mapped with the help of a… GPS system, following which a specially designed robot creates a finely drawn sand map in the ground. Polak spent three years working on this body of work, which tells two stories of milk - truck drivers who transport Peak Milk throughout Nigeria, and nomadic herdsmen who travel through the country with their cattle.

[Image: Maria from "Metropolis," Director: Fritz Lang, 1927. Film still, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung.] Robot Dreams :: October 9, 2010 – February 20, 2011 :: Kunsthaus Graz, Lendkai 1, A–8020 Graz, Austria.

Robots are no longer found just on the factory floor or as highly developed imaginary creatures in science-fiction stories. They are moving into our homes, taking to the water or the air, optimizing artificial limbs, helping autistic children and surveying fields. But how do computer-controlled processes work in comparison with our brain? How much of our supposed human freedom of thought is actually autonomous and not just the logical consequence of neuronal activity? Continue reading

[Rendering of "Geometric Death Frequency—141"] Federico Díaz: Geometric Death Frequency—141 :: October 23, 2010 – March 2012 :: Opening Reception with the Artist: October 23; 2:00 - 4:00 pm :: MASS MoCA, 87 Marshall Street, North Adams, MA.

Geometric Death Frequency—141 is a new site-specific sculpture by Prague-based artist Federico Díaz. Created from 420,000 black spheres precisely milled and assembled by robotic machines, untouched by human hands from concept to materialization, the 50-feet long by 20-feet high sculpture will fill MASS MoCA’s entrance courtyard with a fragmented wave seemingly caught between movement and stasis. Continue reading

Robots and Representation: Emerging Issues in Gender, Technology, Design and Culture — Symposium and Exhibition; Keynote speaker: Brenda Laurel + Special screening of The Mechanical Bride and discussion with the filmmaker Allison de Fren :: November 5, 2010; 9:00 am - 5:00 pm :: Discovery Learning Research Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana :: Call for Artists | Proposals — Deadline: October 1, 2010. Continue reading

The Emergence of Consciousness Project: Investigating Machine Consciousness Through Performance Art – Event with performance/installation, talks and robot-building ‘drop-in’ workshop takes place :: July 25, 2010: Installation + Workshop (Steve Carpenter, robot building): 12:00 - 5:00 pm; Talks: 2:00 - 5:00 pm (Harry Witchell, Inman Harvey, Anna Dumitiru); Performance: 3:30 pm :: Lighthouse, Brighton, UK (part of the London 2012 Open Weekend) .

The Emergence of Consciousness by Anna Dumitriu: By taking on the role of a robotic agent the artist will try to begin to understand her own mind in new ways and by working with a scientist and a philosopher meaningful interactions can develop with the potential to produce innovative outcomes. Continue reading

Sónar Festival 2010: SonarMatica — 34 artists, 20 works, 2 cities :; June 17-19, 2010 :: Barcelona + Galicia.

The Sónar 2010 Barcelona exhibition displays interesting artistic work produced using and based around the world of robotics. Robotic dogs, chairs that put themselves up and machines for drawing self-portraits are some of the curious works that will be on display at SonarMàtica 2010 Barcelona.

A chair that folds itself up and puts itself again, surveillance robots, robots that play the violin and guide users drawing a self-portrait, robotic pet… All this and much more are featured in this year’s SonarMàtica, in which the festival is again collaborating with Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the production centre Hangar. Continue reading

Osram Art Projects – Seven Screens (Mittlerer Ring, Munich, Germany) presents: Harun Farocki: Umgiessen Variation on Opus 1 by Tomas Schmit :: May 20 - November 21, 2010 :: Opening: May 19; 7:00 pm :: OSRAM Art Projects, Hellabrunner Str. 1, 81543 München, Germany, U1 Candidplatz.

The eighth installation on the SEVEN SCREENS was realized by the internationally renowned film maker Harun Farocki. The SEVEN SCREENS, existing since 2006, are a unique platform for digital art works in Munich’s public space. For his project Farocki created a site specific work that reacts to the ’spectacle expectation’ that is often associated with LED screens as a medium.

Umgiessen (Re-pouring) refers to Tomas Schmit’s performance, ‘Zyklus für Wassereimer (oder Flaschen)’ (Cycle for Water Buckets [or Bottles]), which he performed on December 18, 1963 in Amsterdam. Continue reading

Art + Science Now — by Stephen Wilson — is a global overview of the ways in which contemporary artists draw on scientific and technological developments to explore new forms of creative expression. In the twenty-first century, some of the most dynamic works of art are being produced not in the studio but in the laboratory, where artists probe cultural, philosophical, and social questions connected with cutting-edge scientific and technological research. Their work ranges across disciplines — microbiology, the physical sciences, information technologies, human biology and living systems, kinetics and robotics — and takes in everything from eugenics to climate change to artificial intelligence. Continue reading