[The available clipping ends with a continuation marker “p. 28”. That continuation has not been found in the supplied archive.]
By bringing art and new technologies together, the Grand Palais explores the relationship between “Artists & Robots”. An exhibition questioning creation in the age of artificial intelligence.
“This exhibition is not an ode to technology,” curator Laurence Bertrand Dorléac warns at the outset. “It questions transhumanism, without providing a definitive answer.”
The exhibition unfolds in three successive chapters: “The machine that creates”, “The programmed work” and “The robot breaks free”. “The aim is always to ask how artists behave in the age of robots,” the curator continues. “We question the dialogue between art and technology.”
In the first section, robots create works before visitors’ eyes. Patrick Tresset places his trust in mechanical arms at school desks. They reproduce, differently each time, models imposed by the artist—here, the thoroughly reinterpreted classical theme of still life. “Even though the result may sometimes surprise him, the artist remains in control,” Laurence Bertrand Dorléac explains.
In the second section, robots no longer appear as such: they have become part of the work. With Reflexao #2, Brazilian artist Raquel Kogan literally plunges us into numbers and algorithms. Inside a “dark room”, visitors, quickly disoriented, are entirely covered by an uninterrupted stream of luminous signs.
“Unlike utilitarian robots, these works are simply playful! They merely lead us to ask what we wish to keep specifically human in artistic creation.” And at least one human element remains… the design of the robots.
Technology fulfils certain artistic desires, including total immersion in a work and interaction with it. This is true of Michel Bret and Edmond Couchot’s Pissenlits. When a visitor blows into a microphone, the flowers’ little seeds fly away in a charming effect. Everyone transforms the work in their own way.
Then there are “generative” works, which, through algorithms, manage to create themselves. Franco-Italian artist Jacopo Baboni Schilingi experiments with this by making music from his breathing. “Thanks to the medical sensor I have worn since May 2017, I am creating a permanent work that will last as long as my life, since it is entirely based on my breathing,” he explains. “The music follows my moods. When I am calm, so is it. I absolutely do not want to, and cannot, predict it! With this work, I seek to share my emotional present.”
Marion Mayer