I visited the Near Future arts lab in Sapporo yesterday and we arranged a date for a new video work. Near Future are a group of performance artists and tech wizards who have created the robot Kinbi.

The robot makes friends with the audience by shaking their hand and speaking to them. It then displays the friend count data on its screen. The group perform in lab coats and welding masks. They do not speak to the audience directly but through the robot and keyboards. The have performed the Rising sun rock festival and many events in Sapporo.

In another work they cook 2 minute noodles inside hardening concrete. They then break open the cement to eat the noodles, Wacky geeks! They are working on there English text for world domination. Look out for them in your neighbourhood.

Here they are on TV performing with household objects to create a painting.

Karakuri ningyō (からくり人形?) are mechanized puppets or automata from Japan from the 18th century to 19th century. The word ‘karakuri’ means a “mechanical device to tease, trick, or take a person by surprise”. It implies hidden magic, or an element of mystery. In Japanese ningyō is written as two separate characters, meaning person and shape. It may be translated as puppet, but also by doll or effigy. The dolls’ gestures provided a form of entertainment.

Three main types of karakuri exist: Butai karakuri (舞台からくり stage karakuri?) were used in theatre. Zashiki karakuri (座敷からくり tatami room karakuri?) were small and were played with in rooms. Dashi karakuri (山車からくり festival car karakuri?) were used in religious festivals, where the puppets were used to perform reenactments of traditional myths and legends.

They influenced the Noh, Kabuki and Bunraku theatre.Karakuri ningyō (からくり人形?) are mechanized puppets or automata from Japan from the 18th century to 19th century. The word ‘karakuri’ means a “mechanical device to tease, trick, or take a person by surprise”. It implies hidden magic, or an element of mystery. In Japanese ningyō is written as two separate characters, meaning person and shape. It may be translated as puppet, but also by doll or effigy. The dolls’ gestures provided a form of entertainment.

Three main types of karakuri exist: Butai karakuri (舞台からくり stage karakuri) were used in theatre. Zashiki karakuri (座敷からくり tatami room karakuri) were small and were played with in rooms. Dashi karakuri (山車からくり festival car karakuri) were used in religious festivals, where the puppets were used to perform reenactments of traditional myths and legends. They influenced the Noh, Kabuki and Bunraku theatre.

Kirsty Boyle has a great site about her Karakuri research

http://www.karakuri.info/

KAPROS and MUSE were a research project of Tsukuba UNIV titled “Modeling the Evaluation Structure of KANSEI” 1997-2002. The meaning of “KANSEI” is similar to “emotional engineering”. The body of these robots were made and designed in “kyushu institute of design (computer related design laboratory)” 1999 . The software and navigation system was developed by intelligent robot laboratory at Tsukuba UNIV. (Maeyama shoichi). Also involved was Tamon Hosoya who now teaches at Sapporo City University.

National Art Museum of China (NAMOC)
No. 1 Wusi Street Dongcheng District
Beijing 100010 P.R.China
Jun 10, 2008 -July 3, 2008

http://www.mediartchina.org

Henrik Menné, 56L, 2004, Denmark.

The dynamic sculptures by Henrik Menné are basically about process, (im)balance, and organizing matter by means of rigid systems on the one hand and chance on the other.

The majority of Menné’s production consists of machines or arrangements temporarily put to work when exhibited. The visible process is always silent, controlled, and structured by repetitive movements as the machines transform a single material – plastic, wax, metal or stone – into distinct objects. The objects are seldom treated as autonomous works of art. They are destroyed or the material recycled after the exhibition.

Although closed and often self-referring, the system of Menné’s processual sculptures both change the environment and is sensible to changes in the environment. The instability of the exhibition space is what causes the important marginal variations in the almost identical objects produced by a particular machine.

The process of 56L seems self-evident, and, like other works by Henrik Menné, 56L displays an immense effort and obsessive trait by putting forces such as gravity and the well-known qualities of a material into play.

56L (2004) consists of solid glue, a fan, iron, a heating element, and an engine. The dimensions of the work are variable (machine 180×150x150 cm).

56L produces a white web of glue. The machine heats up solid glue, which then flows down in thin threads in front of a fan that blows the strings in different directions. As a temporary result in which the history of the white structure is contained, the web takes the shape of the object or surface on which it settles.

The intriguing low-tech and analogue character of Henrik Menné’s works illustrates the principle behind the organization of the particular sculpture. Despite this rational transparency, works by Menné almost always appear logically impossible and tremendously beautiful.

Biography
Henrik Menné (born 1973) lives and works in Copenhagen (Denmark). He graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2002 and is represented by Galleri Tom Christoffersen (Cph).

Website
http://www.tomchristoffersen.dk/artists/henrik_menne/henrik_menne.html

I am currently a artist in residence at S-AIR in sunny Sapporo, Hokkaido, and I am reminded of the great artist Kenji Yanobe. Looks like he has a new studio called UltraFactory

After watching ‘Fellini’s Casanova’ (1976) again yesterday i thought i should post it as it left me with thoughts as to what the film actually means. Specifically the dancing doll automaton and the bird automation - What did they represent?; A reflection of Casanova’s empty and mechanical soul, devoid of real love. We told by Donald Sutherland in the special feature that Fellini detested Casanova’s moral frivolity and compared him to the re-surging ‘well-to do’ scene in Rome at the time. As with other works of Fellini we are left to fill in the pieces.

The doll has definite connections with Olympia from the novel ‘The Sandman’ by E.T.A Hoffman. 1816. Jentsch and Freud used ‘The Sandman’ as the key text in their attempts to define ‘the uncanny’.

(On the psycology of the uncanny, Jenstch 1906),(The Uncanny, Freud, 1919).

Plot: 18th Century Italy. Giacomo Casanova has a reputation as a great lover. He passes through many adventures in search of passion. He meets the aging Marquise d’Urfe who wants him to impregnate her so that she can reincarnate in her child’s body, is jailed as a black magician but escapes, and enters a love-making competition held by the Prince del Brando, along with many other adventures.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074291/

New life has been breathed into Asia’s oldest “modern” robot, an 80-year-old golden-skinned humanoid from Osaka. Gakutensoku, a 3.2 meter (10 ft 6 in) tall automaton powered by compressed air, can tilt its head, move its eyes, smile, and puff up its cheeks and chest as instructed — just as it did 80 years ago — thanks to a 20-million-yen ($200,000) computer-controlled pneumatic servo system that replaces its original system of inflatable rubber tubes.

Built in 1928 by biologist Makoto Nishimura, Gakutensoku was first exhibited in Kyoto as part of the formal celebration of the Showa Emperor’s ascension to the throne. The robot traveled to a number of expos and wowed onlookers with its mad calligraphy skills before going missing in Germany. After a long disappearance, Gakutensoku was located and later repatriated to Osaka.

The reanimated Gakutensoku will star as the main attraction at the newly renovated Osaka Science Museum beginning July 18.

http://www.pinktentacle.com

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

ArtBots is pleased to announce that the fifth international ArtBots exhibition for robotic art and art-making robots will take place at the Trinity College Science Gallery in Dublin, Ireland on September 19-21, 2008. Creators of talented robots are invited to submit their work for possible inclusion in the show.

We have no fixed idea of what qualifies as robotic art; if you think it’s a robot and you think it’s art, we encourage you to submit your work. Regardless of whether it’s hi-tech, low-tech, or neg-tech, we’re interested in the ideas you’re working with, not just the gear. Proposals for workshops, performances, and other kinds of participation are also welcome.

Each ArtBots is a bit different; the location changes and we invite new humans to co-curate the show with us. We hope that by changing the specifics of the show each year we can keep it accessible to a diverse range of people, works, and ideas.

http://artbots.org/2008/

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.