The Woman and the Snowman

source: mvstudioorg

The Woman is the first work in The Woman and the Snowman series, which investigates the boundaries of what can be perceived as real. It comments on the influence techno-advancements have had upon mediating relationships in the context of the irreversible alterations taking place within the environment.

My fascination with fictitious characters and impossible love stories (Fish- Bird 2003–2006) led me to create another quasi-impossible analogy between an obviously fictional character, like a snowman, and a woman. Here, the snowman—as an honest representation of a fictional being—is more real than the woman. The “woman”, although she appears to be human, is a humanoid robot (Ishiguro 2007) created by Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University.
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source: synapsenetau

Mari Velonaki is a media artist who has worked in the field of interactive installation art since 1995. Her practice engages the spectator/participant with digital and robotic ‘characters’ in interplays stimulated by sensory triggered interfaces (speech 1995, touch 1997, breath 1998, electrostatic charge 2000, vision system 2000, light 2003, robotics 2003-06). Her principal contribution to the field of interactive art occurs through the creation of innovative human-machine interfaces that promote intimate and immersive relationships between participants and interactive artworks.
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source: agideasnet

Mari Velonaki is an artist and researcher in the field of interactive installation art.
She creates works that incorporate movement, speech, touch, breath, electrostatic charge, artificial vision and robotics.

She is currently Associate Professor and Director of the Creative Robotics Lab at the National Institute of Experimental Arts at the College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales.

In 2003, Mari initiated and led a major art/science project ‘Fish–Bird: Autonomous Interactions in a Contemporary Arts Setting 2004–2007’ for the Australian Research Council in collaboration with roboticists at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics.

In 2006, she co- founded the Centre for Social Robotics, dedicated to inter-disciplinary research into human-robot interaction in spaces that incorporate the general public.

Mari was awarded an Australia Council Visual Arts Fellowship and in 2009 received a four-year Australia Research Council Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship to develop a project aimed at understanding the physicality that is possible and acceptable between a human and a robot.

Mari’s artworks have been exhibited at major museums and festivals throughout Australia and in New Zealand, the UK, China, Korea, Denmark, the USA, Spain, Austria and Germany.