This is the "opening" statement of my blog on cybernetic Art. I wrote this is my blog (here...) when I was about to start a PhD is Cybernetics ( Cybernetics and Art) at the University of Reading in the UK. It was supposed to be the record of my thinking process for the project,it became a rant. Long since I decided not to pursue that path, but the records remain and I think it makes interesting reading as it challenges a few ideas about art and About Science.
another piece of work ( or as my dad would call it "work") by @anarcharos
by Mauricio Villamil.
As an artist (with a solid technical formation in technology -programming for computer graphics and systems networking -I intend to create a body of work that make use of cybernetics and robotics technology as their medium, along with the creation of a discourse that critically substantiates the aesthetic foundation of such a project.The final product would hopefully make a contribution that will advance Cybernetics and Robotics in a conceptual way (and hopefully also technically) and would contribute to further open the way to Art that makes use of cutting edge technology, as a valid,interesting and meaningful form of Art, by bringing the art audience to develop an interest and a different approach to the way they relate to technology.To arrive to that body of work it is necessary to discern how the two subjects of study -so apparently distant- can correlate:
fig_1.Cybernetics (Robotics) are (for the purpose of this research) the medium used to convey a meaning, that meaning is partly limited,determined,shaped, by the limitations and the “nature” of the medium, and mostly by the intention of the author and the focus that it is given. The focus of the meaning ,is constituted by a central block of ideas that are developed and matured throughout the project.
A scheme presented like this, would apparently leave the medium at a superficial level, merely used as a tool, a carcass for the idea. This is not the case, as the central block of ideas that constitute the aesthetic foundation for the project are the result of meditation and critical thinking about the medium itself (Cybernetics / Robotics) its relationship to man, its historical and meaning and epistemological implications, finally its potential aesthetic and poetic value when viewed on an extrapolated context.
Ideas I am meditating about currently, intending to delineate the field of intersection between Cybernetics and Art (as shown in fig_1), is a set of ideas where the historical meaning of Cybernetics/Robotics meets the mental picture that we “the masses” (public/viewer) have about technology are: (But this images are also culturally determined and constrained):
1 – Anima, Animation, Animatronics —————–> soul,spirit,ghost
2 – soul —————–> body
3 – software —————–> hardware
4 – Automaton —————-> Artificial Intelligence
It is important to highlight that the project is in this way fueled by my personal fascination with Cybernetics/Robotics, and that this fascination comes from the “mystery” it was imprinted on my mind as a child by perceiving an in-animated object (Robot) “coming to life”. That life or artificial life, is obviously breathed by software. This makes the subject of “Artificial Intelligence” of particular interest, and one that I intend to work on to certain depth.
So there it arises in the choice of language that I am using to describe my ideas, that symbolism, metaphor, poetry are an important element, and an element that is necessary when thinking about Cybernetics/Robotics in the context of this research. Not only because the context is partly “artistic” but because the idea of Automaton reveals the intention of man of becoming life giving god is persistent throughout history, and is in itself a metaphor, a desire of man to understand man itself, a desire to understand how life is created, a desire to be co-creator of life.
In order to understand what “Artificial Intelligence” is one needs to discern what “Intelligence” is or how man conceives it. what constitutes intelligence or simply what constitutes thought … In order to understand this from an anthropological sense ( a view of man through psychology)
Mauricio Villamil