FESTIVAL IZIS
!brute_force: Soft Resilience
Maja Smrekar & Jonas Jørgensen
!brute_force is an umbrella title for an ongoing research platform interrogating the premise that humans and nonhumans are no longer embedded in a dualist frame, but levelled within the global infrastructure of the market economy and the techno-capitalist commodification of life. The work is set up as a grid where a human and a dog climb through a landscape of tiles, while their physiological data is captured and classified by an AI. By means of a generative procedure, gathered data has been translated into structural mesh patterns embedded in soft robotic morphologies. The robots enact the performativity of an evolutionary algorithm that transduces data into vectors and generate new deviations by applying a method for continually introducing as much difference into the system as possible. Through an extension of mutant values, the data eventually becomes an independent entity, pushing the soft robots towards the transformative potential of the algorithmic unknown.
Credits
Installation
Design: Maja Smrekar (SI)
Infographic design and research: Dongwook Jang (K / NL)
Planning and technical solutions: Miloš Vujković (RS / DE)
Architecture: Aljaž Rudolf (SI)
Soft Robotics
Design: Jonas Jørgensen (DK), Mads Bering Christiansen (DK)
Soft robotics fabrication: Mads Bering Christiansen (DK)
Microcontroller programming: Daniel Mauricio Fernandez Gonzalez (CO / ES), Jonas Jørgensen (DK)
Algorithm programming: Daniel Mauricio Fernandez Gonzalez (CO / ES)
Mechanical parts design and fabrication: Cao Danh Do (DK)
Electronics: Jeppe Rahbæk Mosgaard (DK)
Tile design and production: Miloš Vujković (RS / DE)
AI Team
Alen Balja (SI), Miran Lončarič (SI), Naveen Agula (IN), dr. Primož Ravbar (USA)
Interface design: Dongwook Jang (K / NL)
K-9 Team
Mia Zahariaš (SI), Tina Šolar (SI)
Dogs: Boogie (SI), Ada (SI)
Thanks to: RPS Company, Ljubljana (SI)
The first in the series of projects (2019 – 2020) under the title !brute_force: Feeding the Algorithm was executed by Maja Smrekar and produced by Quo Artis Foundation (ES), co-produced by Kapelica Gallery / Kersnikova Institute (SI), The Culture Yard / CLICK Festival (DK). The project was part of the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab and was supported by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia (SI), Municipality of Ljubljana – Department for Culture (SI) and Danish Art Council (DK)
The soft robotic tile prototype (2020 – 2021) was realized in co-authorship between Maja Smrekar and Jonas Jørgensen within the framework of the STUDIOTOPIA program at Ars Electronica Linz GmbH & Co KG (A) with the support of the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union in collaboration with Center for Soft Robotics, SDU Biorobotics, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, University of Southern Denmark (DK)
The final robotic performance installation (2022) was realized in co-authorship between Maja Smrekar and Jonas Jørgensen and produced by PiNA Association (SI); co-produced by TROP – Institute for artistic research (SI) in collaboration with Center for Soft Robotics, SDU Biorobotics, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, University of Southern Denmark (DK) and RPS Company (SI). Funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia (SI)
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