Female Figure
Female Figure is an animatronic sculpture created by Jordan Wolfson. It is a humanoid robot with 48-motors in it so that it can easily swivel its hips and move its hands and makes it looks like it is dancing. It is standing in a small room and fastened in a large mirror. It also has a tiny camera with motion-tracking software embedded, when the audiences come closer, its eyes will follow the audience.
It has elegant female body shape but covers a lot of black dirt in its body and a green mask on her face. When talking about the choice of covering black dirty in its body, Jordan Wolfson explains that the dirt is about the idea that it has escaped from something but she’s not hurt.
Timo Feldhaus states Female Figure in spikeartmagazine.com:
"When you experience the animatronic robot in person, all the references art professionals might customarily make give way to the raw power of genuine emotion. Such feelings of real excitement, physical and intellectual stimulation occur all too rarely in a contemporary art exhibition. You simply and straightforwardly feel a primal human fear when confronted by the humanoid robot." Feldhaus, Timo. 2014. (http://www.spikeartmagazine.com/en/articles/jordan-wolfsons-robot-moment-terror)
The humanoid robot has an ugly, evil mask, also has sharp, terrible teeth. While in performance, it will move its body and dance like a stripper. However, with the terrible mask and teeth, its dance can not get audience sexual excited but terrifying moment instead. As audience watch the robot, it will give the audience a sense of being an object and gazed by automation. Wolfson identifies this robot as “She is me” and distances himself from his creation “What comes out of me isn’t literal, isn’t my desires”. In some ways, the robot is a kind of reflection of human beings, being dirty, ugly and terrible as they can not stop watching it.
image from http://www.computersciencezone.org/10-mind-blowing-pieces-robot-art/
In Giles Walker’s Peepshow, he also creates a dancing robotic artwork. These pole-dancing robots have cameras on their head and they will do some simple actions like shaking heads, hands and turning back. Different from what Jordan Wolfson does, Giles Walker makes his artwork looks like they are exactly robots, but Jordan Wolfson makes his artwork looks like a female. Giles Walker’s piece is about reflecting the human lives as a peepshow that people are all living in a peepshow and continually being watched on every street corner. And Jordan Wolfson’s artwork is about to have a robot as a reflection of human beings. As the audience watch the robot, they can feel its dirty, ugly and terrible, just like themselves.
image from https://www.ted.com/talks/bruno_maisonnier_dance_tiny_robots?language=en
In Bruno Maisonnier’s artwork Dance, tiny robots, he creates a performance consists of many tiny robots. These robots are programmed sequences and act smoothly similar like what humans can do. Different like what Jordan Wolfson does, these robots have really emotive and crazy actions that can even creep and bow. To me, this is more likely a performance to show the technologies. To have the robots programmed like dancing, Bruno hopes to state his company’s technology to have all these artificial automations under control and service for human beings.
Exhibitions:
The Broad Museum, LA
References
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JestwuC1Cik
http://www.computersciencezone.org/10-mind-blowing-pieces-robot-art/
http://www.spikeartmagazine.com/en/articles/jordan-wolfsons-robot-moment-terror
