It’s Alive!
Robotic sculptures probe our fascination with artificial intelligence.
Louis-Philippe Rondeau, “Liminal,” 2018
installation using slit-scan projection, installation view (photo by Taylor family)
Can an artwork make its own decisions and feed that information back to us? And how do we feel when we see machines come to life and mimic our movements? That’s the question posed by MirNs, a celebration of artificial intelligence, coding and robotics, on view until May 30 at the New Media Gallery in New Westminster, B.C.
The show's title refers to mirror neurons, cells in the brain that generate empathy when we see someone doing exactly what we’re doing. Curators Sarah Joyce and Gordon Duggan, who assembled the works, are also interested in the ephemeral nature of photography, particularly on social media, and have combined the two issues in an interactive exhibition that both excites and informs.
“People don’t understand artificial intelligence,” says Joyce. “They want more information. They want to see how it’s working. All of (these machines) are seeing us and then reflecting it back to us. It’s really fascinating.”
Liminal, by Quebec artist Louis-Philippe Rondeau, involves a large suspended hoop, a camera and slit-scan, a photographic process. I stepped through the hoop and my image, distorted and smeared, was immediately projected onto a nearby wall. As soon as the image materialized, it vanished.
“It plays with the idea the audience is the artist,” says Joyce. Sure enough, I could give myself two heads and four feet by contorting myself in front of the camera or running through it at different speeds. I was creating my own fleeting reality.
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Klaus Obermaier, Stefano D'Alessio and Martina Menegon, “Ego,” 2018
interactive installation (photo by Taylor family)
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Klaus Obermaier, Stefano D'Alessio and Martina Menegon, “Ego,” 2018
interactive installation (photo by Taylor family)
Nonfacial Mirror, a bathroom mirror on a plinth by the Korean artist duo Shinseungback Kimyonghun, uses facial recognition technology. I stared into the mirror. The mirror turned itself away. Cheeky.
Ego, by Austrian Klaus Obermaier and his Italian teammates Stefano D’Alessio and Martina Menegon, also jests. It turned me into a stick figure that mimicked my movements. The longer I stayed in front of it, the wilder the movements became. Eventually, I was almost dancing. Talk about an artwork having a mind of its own.
Daniel Rozin, “PomPom Mirror,” 2015
interactive wall installation (courtesy New Media Gallery)
It’s hard to think of these machines as sentient beings, but after a while a familiarity creeps in. PomPom Mirror, by American-Israeli artist Daniel Rozin, consists of 928 black and white pompoms that create an ever-changing three-dimensional silhouette.
“It’s almost alive,” Joyce says. It’s true. I feel a strange empathy as the silhouette responds instantaneously to my every movement.
Uncanny Mirror, by German artist Mario Klingemann, expands on that emotional connection.
“When you approach it, it sees your face," says Joyce. "It picks up all the biometric markers very quickly and it makes a diagram in its brain. It looks for your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your hair – and it composes this (image).”
Mario Klingemann, “Uncanny Mirror,” 2018
interactive installation with machine learning (photo by Jen Arbo)
Shuffling through hundreds of other biometrics recorded from previous exhibitions and now stored in its memory, an image quickly takes shape. You’re not quite sure what’s going on. The result is uncanny, but painterly as well. It's almost reminiscent of a portrait by Francis Bacon.
MirNs is playful and engaging. The works are not just mirroring what they see, but, thanks to their creators, also making their own decisions as to what is relevant – in effect, thinking like a human. The result is eerie and exhilarating. ■
MirNs at the New Media Gallery in New Westminster, B.C. from March 13 to May 30, 2021.
Correction: April 22, 2021, 8:18 p.m. An earlier version of this article stated that PomPom Mirror is composed of 525 pompoms. It is actually composed of 928 pompoms. As well, the show was co-curated by Sarah Joyce and Gordon Duggan, not just Joyce. The post has been updated to reflect this.
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777 Columbia Street (3rd flr, Anvil Centre), New Westminster, British Columbia V3M 1B6
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