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.
Emanuel Gollob. disarming, 2023. Crypto, Art and Climate exhibition, National Library of Latvia, Riga, 2023. Photo: Kristīne Madjare
Emanuel Gollob. disarming, 2023. Crypto, Art and Climate exhibition, National Library of Latvia, Riga, 2023. Photo: Juris Rozenbergs
Emanuel Gollob. disarming, 2023. Crypto, Art and Climate exhibition, National Library of Latvia, Riga, 2023. Photo: Kristīne Madjare
