Emobot
Catala’s work investigate emotions and empathy in our technological information-driven society. His computer generated Emobot appears at once familiar and strange as it utters simple statement about its feelings. The visually mesmerizing figure might serve as an avatar onto which we relate to the expression of strong feelings when they are delivered digitally-an increasing prevalent cultural phenomena. Listening to a not-quite human presence express its vulnerability may have less impact in us than hearing a real person communicate similar emotions. Nevertheless, the deliberate and repetitive manner in which Emobot articulates powerful sentiments affords us ample opportunity to reflect on the existential quality of their meaning.

AMECA
“Multiply the power of artificial Intelligence with an artificial body. Ameca is the physical presence that brings your code to life. The most advanced lifelike humanoid you can use to develop and show off your greatest machine learning interactions. This robot is the digital interface to the real world.” Engineered Arts
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“A U.K. robotics firm called Engineered Arts just debuted the first videos of its new humanoid robot, which is able to make hyper-realistic facial expressions. It’s a pretty stunning achievement in the world of robotics; it just also happens to be absolutely terrifying.
Named Ameca, the robot’s face features eyes, cheeks, a mouth, and forehead that contort and change shape to show off emotions ranging from awe to surprise to happiness. One of the new videos of Ameca shows it waking up and seemingly coming to grips with its own existence for the first time ever.” Neel V.Patel

S1 Pendant Light
S1 is an interactive pendant light. Its brightness and height are adjusted according to human presence. Units can be combined to generate dynamic patterns.

Intagible #Form
In this artwork “intangible #form [2019]”, focusing on how do we see the intangible as tangible using 420 kinetic laser modules. I’ve tried to generate virtual consciousness, presence and behavior of life in this time. And then I’ve been exploring what are we getting the surfacing consciousness and presence from the thing is in front of us or are we giving these to them? I think that when paying attention to consciousness, it could be a trigger to sense that we are human ourself.

Prehysterical Machine

The Prehysterical Machine has a spherical body and eight arms made of aluminum tubing. It has a sensing system, a motor system and a control system that functions as an autonomous nervous system (entirely reactive). The machine is suspended from the ceiling and its arms are actuated by pneumatic valves and cylinders. Pyroelectric sensors allow the robot to detect the presence of viewers in the nearby environment. It reacts to the viewers according to the amount of stimuli it receives. The perceived emergent behaviors of this machine engender a multiplicity of interpretations based on single dynamic pattern of events.The aim of this project is to induce empathy of the viewer towards a “character” which is nothing more than an articulated metal structure. The strength of the simulacra is emphasized by perverting the perception of the creature, which is neither animal nor human, carried through the inevitable instinct of anthropomorphism and projection of our internal sensations, a reflex triggered by any phenomenon that challenges our senses.
FILE FESTIVAL

Me, My Selfie and I
Katja is inspired by the influence of everydays’ digital technologies on society and with that the arising questions about the identity of our human body. She fuses everydays’ technology, the dancers’ body and the presence of the audience into unconventional performances. Who moves who?

Silent Barrage

Silent Barrage has a “biological brain” that telematically connects with its “body” in a way that is familiar to humans: the brain processes sense data that it receives, and then brain and body formulate expressions through movement and mark making. But this familiarity is hidden within a sophisticated conceptual and scientific framework that is gradually decoded by the viewer. The brain consists of a neural network of embryonic rat neurons, growing in a Petri dish in a lab in Atlanta, Georgia, which exhibits the uncontrolled activity of nerve tissue that is typical of cultured nerve cells. This neural network is connected to neural interfacing electrodes that write to and read from the neurons. The thirty-six robotic pole-shaped objects of the body, meanwhile, live in whatever exhibition space is their temporary home. They have sensors that detect the presence of viewers who come in. It is from this environment that data is transmitted over the Internet, to be read by the electrodes and thus to stimulate, train or calm parts of the brain, depending on which area of the neuronal net has been addressed.

Nicolas Deshayes’ sculptures use materials such as annodised aluminum and vacuum formed plastic to embrace the glossy aesthetics of 21st century design. Despite their emphasis on slick industrial surfaces and physicality, Deshayes’ works maintain a human presence in the form of glutinously rich, bodily allusions, engaging with the materials in ways that distort the ordinary.

ΔΗΜΉΤΡΗΣ ΠΑΠΑΪΩΆΝΝΟΥ
ДИМИТРИСОМ ПАПАИОАННУ
NOWHERE
This central scene is dedicated to the memory of PINA BAUSCH

NOWHERE explores the nature of the theatrical stage itself, a spatial mechanism continually transformed and redefined by the human presence to denote any place, and yet designed to be a non-place. 26 performers measure and mark out the space using their bodies, pitting themselves against its dimensions and technical capabilities in a site-specific performance that can be presented nowhere else.