Fastforward on New Media Art: Robots - with France Cadet / Christian Faubel / Pascal Glissmann e Martina Hofflin / Ken Goldberg / Leonel Moura / Kenneth Rinaldo / Robotlab :: curated by Laura Bardier :: November 8 - December 3, 2007 :: Palazzo delle Arti Napoli [PAN], Via dei Mille 60, 80122 Napoli.

A recurring image in contemporary society is the growing speed of digital information. Technology evolves and absorbs information at a dizzying speed, whereby knowledge is transmitted to intelligent machines in a process which seems to be leading us towards a post-human hybrid state. The exponential evolution of information technologies may produce the means by which artists will be able to create beyond their own vision and knowledge. On this occasion, the PAN has turned its attention to research and production in the field of robot art. Intelligent machines - once an oxymoron - are becoming commonplace. Robots are present in science and technology as well as in our homes, in art, in cinema and literature. Their importance is growing in diffuse sectors like industrial production and entertainment. At a deeper level, indeed, robotics raises fascinating cultural issues involving philosophers, artists, scientists and technologists. Experiments in this field started as early as in the 1950s with, for example, Edward Ihnatowicz’s Senster or Cybernetic Serendipity at London’s ICA, and are hosted also in the main contemporary art events, as it happens at the Mexican pavilion of the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Contemporary robotics is the field in which the comprehension of human intelligence materialises; it is a topic that has always been transversal to scientific and human disciplines alike, and that has brought together research fields into neuroscience, engineering, computer science, biology, mathematics, psychology, philosophy. Transferring the processes of animal and human brain to robots is an ongoing effort which, besides technical difficulties, raises crucial questions on more general issues too: can an “intelligent” robot also imitate and learn, experience the world and become aware of it? What social status, what rights, what responsibilities will this and other types of “artificial life” have? What relationship will such a robot be able to establish with human beings? Will it be possible to design creative robots, able to act in a drama together with actors or to become recognised authors? How will aesthetics theories have to renovate themselves to account for this new dimension of art, where the artist can become a robot designer and the creation can eventually be a work and a process at the same time? These are the questions which the artists invited to Fastforward on New Media Art: Robots try to give an answer to, discussing many of these issues with varying experiences and results.

The exhibition hosts artists such as Moura and Robotlab, who propose robots that create art, or as Rinaldo, Glissmann and Faubel, who present robots that are works of art themselves or, finally, as Cadet and Goldberg, who create works inspired from the imaginative world related to robots and electronics.