Lynn Hershman Leeson; Bitforms Gallery

Lynn Hershman, “Olympia: Fictive Projections and the Myth of the Real Woman,”

Lynn Hershman Leeson returns to bitforms gallery in NY with the first showing of a new series, Found Objects, April 26 - May 31.

Including the premiere of the sex doll installation, “Olympia: Fictive Projections and the Myth of the Real Woman,” a provocative and updated version of Edouard Manet’s notorious painting, “Olympia”.

http://www.bitforms.com

Kelly Dobson - Machine therapy - OMO

I particularly like Kelly Dobson’s entry for VIDA 10. i got to see her blender work at ISEA2004 but was not that into it, but this one has potential for sure, so subtle /sensual and emotive.

more info about kelly’s work here : http://web.media.mit.edu/~monster/

Omo is an artefact that shares empathic relationships with humans. The invasiveness of the machine dissolves in the direction of an organic allegory that enables new subconscious feelings. In that sense, Omo might also be seen as a friend or a companion. The creature expands and contracts, either matching the users’ breathing or by guiding it through sensing it. The physical sensing generates prosthetic emotions; for example, placing Omo on your stomach could be compared to the intimate sensations emanated by the turgid tummy of a pregnant women. Omo is one of several informed artefacts drawing from the emerging methodology of Machine Therapy that combines art, design, psychodynamics, and engineering making visible complex dynamics that may occur among human and machines. Machine Therapy tweaks technological artefacts in order to explore their sensitive and emotional side forging their role as relaxing and stimulating companions to humans. As humans are increasingly in contact with technological artefacts, works such as Omo awaken unexpected human emotions, evolving more profound, complex and expressive interrelationships with machines.

Rebecca Horn

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_66_3.html

Located in the nexus between body and machine, Rebecca Horn’s work transmogrifies the ordinary into the enigmatic. In a career that has spanned more than 30 years and traversed varied stylistic ground—from Performance [more] to sculptural installations and feature-length films—Horn has continually returned to the body, the source of her beginnings as an artist.
Blue Monday Strip, 1993. Typewriters, ink, metal, and motors, approximately 192 1/8 x 137 inches overall. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Gift of the artist. 93.4231. Rebecca Horn © 2003 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

fish-bird circle b-movement c

http://www.artspace.org.au/2005/10/velonaki.html

Fish-Bird Circle B-Movement C is an interactive installation that explores the dialogical possibilities between two autokinetic objects (two robotic wheelchairs) and their audience. Assisted by integrated writing arms, the chairs write intimate letters on the floor, impersonating two characters, Fish and Bird, who fall in love but can not be together due to ‘technical’ difficulties. In their shared isolation, Fish and Bird communicate intimately with one another via movement and text.

Momoyo Torimitsu

Momoyo Torimitsu, “Miyaya-san In Action”, 1996

In Japanese, Miyata-san is what in English is called a “salary man,” a “kaishain,” or what translates best as a businessman, or employee. He is perfectly dressed in a business suit and performs between high rises in business centers. What differentiates the Miyata-san from any other businessman in this world is that he is made to look so uniform. He just crawls on the floor. Just crawls–he doesn’t do or know anything else but crawling since he is a life-size, crawling robot designed by the Japanese artist Momomyo Torimitsu, who assists him dressed as a nurse.

more here

Sabrina Raaf

http://www.raaf.org/

Sabrina Raaf is a Chicago-based artist who works in both experimental sculptural media and photography. She is a producer of creative machines - machines that independently make art when cross-pollinated with human interaction.

Grower, 2004 (the final remix)

heidi kumao

http://www.heidikumao.net/

Heidi Kumao is an interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses the darker, psychological side of everyday behavior, gestures, and mental states. She works with animation in its broadest sense, including electronic sculptures, intimate installations, “Cinema Machines,” and digital animations.

Untitled (Resist), 2002-03 (Work in Progress)

Girl’s shoes, aluminum, motors, customized electronics, microphone, wood and plexiglass platform.
A machine portrait: audio-activated 6-year-old girl’s legs. As viewers speak to this character, the legs begin a series of random behaviors from imperceptible movement to violent and fast kicking. Video imagery will appear in the torso section.