Emanuel Gollob (AT)
disarming
robotic installation, 2023
disarming is a performative exploration of the relationship between detached robot arms, artificial environments, and human observers, as well as a search for potential future roles of robotics & AI in our society. Learning and unlearning of locomotions in postanthropocentric environments and times. The work playfully explores the ambiguity of disarming as a process of physical detachment and emotional attachment.
Locomotion can be seen as a primal (post-birth) instinct and ultimate act of independence. A robotic limb, somehow detached from a human-constructed technological body, tries to find concepts for advancing movements even though it initially wasn’t made for locomotion – vulnerable yet determined. Parallel to a familiar dystopian plot of technological autonomy and the feelings going with it, witnessing these first clumsy tries may awaken compassion or even a certain emotional bond. disarming paints a picture of a relational world with and between independence and still connectedness.
Emanuel Gollob investigates today’s relations of humans, artificial intelligence & robots with the goal of making alternative relations bodily experienceable. In parallel, his work traces the change in human perception in connection to digitalization. Since 2020, he has been a PhD candidate and researcher at the University of Arts Linz. In 2023, he was a guest artist at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. Subsequently, he became EMAP residence artist at the WRO Art Center.
