Don’t An­thro­po­mor­phise Me Ei­ther

Symposium:

• ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• Don’t Anthropomorpise Me: Electronic Performance Tools, Automatons and The Vanity Apocalypse

• Don’t An­thro­po­mor­phise Me Ei­ther

• Linda Dement

Venue(s):

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

• Panel: Don’t Anthropomorpise Me: Electronic Performance Tools, Automatons and The Vanity Apocalypse

  Our world is a sea of of par­ti­cles that, for no ap­par­ent rea­son, choose to form in the con­stel­la­tions and pat­terns that we are. Our edges are not hard. We are per­me­able. We are largely empty space. We are a con­stant flow, a dy­namic pat­tern, ex­chang­ing atoms with all that is around us; form­ing, con­geal­ing, shed­ding, re­form­ing; swept around by forces, ideas, ma­te­ri­als and en­ergy. Per­haps our first mis­take is to an­thro­po­mor­phise our­selves, think­ing we are sep­a­rate, co­he­sive, au­tonomous be­ings, in sin­gu­lar com­mand of our thoughts, de­ci­sions and ac­tions. In the robot we then see re­flec­tions and par­al­lels of our imag­i­nary free stand­ing, con­tained, in­de­pen­dence in its sim­i­lar os­ten­si­ble au­ton­omy, de­ci­sions and ac­tions. We be­lieve we can con­trol the robot with pro­gram­ming and screw­drivers. We be­lieve it is inert mat­ter. We be­lieve it is a lit­tle crea­ture like us.

  We be­lieve it is noth­ing like the com­plex crea­tures we are. We be­lieve, god like, we cre­ated it. We be­lieve it is a man­age­able clever pet that never shits. We be­lieve it obeys us. We be­lieve it is a life­less ma­chine. We in­vest it with per­son­al­ity. We di­vest it of pres­ence. Yet we are not dis­creet en­ti­ties and nei­ther are ro­bots. What if the par­ti­cles we ap­pear to in­habit are pro­pelled by winds and flow forms of other ideas, other ma­te­r­ial par­ti­cles, other en­er­gies? Per­haps im­pe­tus sweeps into us from the robot or be­yond. Per­haps the robot’s con­stel­la­tion, its arrange­ment, has its own in­tel­li­gence, will and in­ten­tion. Given that we aren’t ma­te­ri­ally sep­a­rate from each other, nor in any way fixed, per­haps its will and in­ten­tion an­i­mate us at the same time as ours dri­ves them. Per­haps over time and in prox­im­ity, the par­ti­cles that seem to form the robot and the par­ti­cles that seem to form the human, can come into en­train­ment, just as pen­du­lums of clocks that begin their swings un­aligned will come into syn­chro­ni­sa­tion. The ex­change of atoms, the cur­rents of ideas, the forces and phe­nom­ena of the sea of par­ti­cles might man­i­fest through some dis­so­nant hum across human and robot fields of for­ma­tion.

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Category:

• Panel