Blood in the Machinery
Keywords:
Robotics, technology, animation, materiality, bordersAbstract
In the West, the prevalent view of robots is dominated by a paradox that couples distance and fear with kinship. How is this view affected when the robot is placed in bloody scenarios? To answer that question, this article examines the simulation of blood in Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s robot installation Can’t Help Myself (2016-2019), leading to four positions: 1) blood has the power to animate and can thus create notions of life; 2) blood may connote suffering and thereby enhance the beholder’s empathy for the robot; 3) blood can lead to feelings of disgust and therefore a rejection of the robot as a living creature; 4) blood can symbolize the suffering of an entire population, placing the robot as either a vengeful machine or a poor creature confined inside a totalitarian system controlled by the true villain: mankind. In order to understand the role of blood, however, it is crucial that the actual context of the robot be examined. Still, this article concludes that the materiality of blood really has the power to simulate a notion of life in even the least anthropomorphic machines.
References
Barad, Karen: Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Durham/London, Duke University Press, 2007.
Bennett, Jane: Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Durham, Duke University Press, 2010.
Camus, Albert: The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, Justin O’Brien (trans.), London, Penguin Books, 1955 [1945].
Darling, Kate, Palash Nandy & Cynthia Breazeal: “Empathetic Concern and the Effect of Stories in Human–Robot Interaction” in IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Communication (ROMAN), 2015, pp. 1-6.
Descartes, René: Meditationer over den første filosofi, Niels Henningsen (trans.), København, Det lille Forlag, 2002 [1641].
du Sautoy, Marcus: The Creativity Code: How AI is Learning to Write, Paint and Think, London, 4th Estate, 2019.
Foucault, Michel: The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, Robert Hurley (trans.), New York, Pantheon Books, 1978 [1976].
Fricke, Beate: “A Liquid History: Blood and Animation in Late Medieval Art” in RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, nr. 63/64, 2013, pp. 53-69.
Gunkel, David J.: “A Vindication of the Rights of Machines” in Philosophy and Technology, vol. 27, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1-8.
Jochum, Elizabeth & Ken Goldberg: “Cultivating the Uncanny: The Telegarden and Other Oddities” in Damith Herath, Kroos Damith & Stelarc (eds.), Robots and Art: Exploring an Unlikely Symbiosis, Perth, Springer, 2016, pp. 149-175.
Kitano, Naho: “A Comparative Analysis: Social Acceptance of Robots Between the West and Japan” in EURON Atelier on Roboethics, 2016, pp. 1-12.
Kristeva, Julia: Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, New York, Columbia University Press, 1982 [1980].
Levinas, Emmanuel: “Ethics and Infinity” in CrossCurrents, vol. 34, nr. 2, 1984, pp. 191-203.
Lohfert Jørgensen, Hans Henrik: “Live Matter and Living Images: Towards a Theory of Animation in Material Media” in Konsthistorisk tidsskrift / Journal of Art History, 86:3, 2017, pp. 251-270.
Marx, Leo: “The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept” in Technology and Culture, vol. 51, nr. 3, 2021, pp. 567-577.
Mayor, Adrienne: Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2018.
Meyer, Melissa: Thicker Than Water: The Origin of Blood As Symbol and Ritual, Milton, Taylor & Francis Group, 2005.
Moura, Leonel: “Machines That Make Art” in Damith Herath, Kroos Damith & Stelarc (eds.), Robots and Art: Exploring an Unlikely Symbiosis, Perth, Springer, 2016, pp. 255-269.
Nail, Thomas: Debating and Defining Borders, Milton, Routledge, 2019.
Nye, David E.: Technology Matters: Questions to Live With, Cambridge/London, The MIT Press, 2007.
Nørskov, Marco: “Technological Dangers and the Potential of Human–Robot Interaction: A Philosophical Investigation of Fundamental Epistemological Mechanisms of Discrimination” in Marco Nørskov (ed.), Social Robots: Boundaries, Potential, Challenges, Farnham, Ashgate Publishing Group, 2015, pp. 133-156.
Penny, Simon: “Robotics and Art, Computationalism and Embodiment” in Damith Herath, Kroos Damith & Stelarc (eds.), Robots and Art: Exploring an Unlikely Symbiosis, Perth, Springer, 2016, pp. 47-65.
Reeves, Nicolas & David St-Onge: “Still and Useless: The Ultimate Automaton” in Damith Herath, Kroos Damith & Stelarc (eds.), Robots and Art: Exploring an Unlikely Symbiosis, Perth, Springer, 2016, pp. 229-254.
Rosello, Mireille & Stephen F. Wolfe: Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersections, New York & Oxford, Berghahn, 2017.
Stephens, Elizabeth & Tara Heffernan: “We have Always Been Robots: The History of Robots and Art” in Damith Herath, Kroos Damith & Stelarc (eds.), Robots and Art: Exploring an Unlikely Symbiosis, Perth, Springer, 2016, pp. 29-45.
HJEMMESIDER
ARTnews: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/sun-yuan-peng-yu-cant-help-myself-twitter-tiktok-1234615686/ (tilgået d. 16. marts 2023).
Guggenheim: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/34812 (tilgået d. 16. marts 2023).
IEEE Spectrum: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-uncanny-valley (tilgået d. 24. marts 2023).
The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/world/asia/china-surveillance-investigation.html (tilgået d. 16. marts 2023).
