'Sentient Cog'

August 3rd - 15th September 2002

The colour used in the heading of this page was arrived at by altering the HTML. Instead of the hex number that informs the computer of the font colour, the word sentient was inserted into the code. The computer could not recognize this as a hex command but made a decision on the information given. It decided that sentient should be shown as red.

In the 18th Century the great Jaquet-Droz made an automaton which could scrawl its own name, according to some sources it also wrote, Cogito ergo sum. This machine operates on a simple system of cams and cogs making it the ancestor of the computer plotter.
'Sentient Cog' features five Irish and International artists exploring the relationships between electronic, mechanical and human emotion. The works in this exhibition create, play, destroy, measure, react, question and tamper with their environment. They use everything from artificial perception to damaged function, questioning how we interact with modern technology on all levels and vice versa.

Artists include:

Simon Lewandowski: Rudimentary machinery that outputs drawings which have a short lifetime in which to be viewed and then are destroy and strewn across
the gallery floor.

Jeremy Deadman: Everyday objects that strain through sound and situation to evolve and describe their state of being.

Saoirse Higgins: r >emote is an interactive installation looking at the subtlety of human emotions, this work attempts to understand our complex identities through a mixture of science and superstition.

Bjoern Schuelke: Drone #2.
Mediasculpture 2002
The futuristic appearance of Bjoern Schuelke's "Drone #2" seems like a requisite from a science fiction film. The autonomous hi-tech construct, consisting of solar cells, heat sensors, propellers, videochips and a TFT monitor is suspended from the ceiling and reacts to the "warm-blooded" spectator without him or her being able to directly influence its movement.
This construction, at first glance finely structured and fragile, mutates, once activated, into a menacing surveillance apparatus whose function is nothing but permanent observation.

Janusz Grünspek: " The future begins inside your head. What are you thinking of? "
Grünspek is occupied with technical and human development, his work traces the displacement of faith and religion by technological advances. To help us adjust to our modern lives he has created several objects such as the silence finder, the decision-helper, success pointer and the friendship tester.

Curated by Paul Murnaghan.

When machines take on a life of their own

Visual Arts: The machine that thinks and feels has been an object of speculative fascination for centuries, not least because the notion puts a question mark against our exalted view of ourselves as being unique, a special case in the universe.

But, while there are periodic flurries of excitement about the future of artificial intelligence and human redundancy, the ramifications have so far been teased out in fiction rather than fact. Regardless of mind-boggling advances in both AI and knowledge of our own mental functioning, Philip K. Dick's tragic androids are still very much creatures of the imagination.

That said, most people have close relationships with machines. They do not think or feel, but they often seem to have personalities, and they certainly inspire emotion in humans, from affection to rage. In Sentient Cog at 5th@Guinness Storehouse, director Paul Murnaghan sets out to explore "the relationship between electronic, mechanical and human emotion" through the work of five contemporary artists.

There is always an element of paranoia and apprehension in our dealings with technology, and Bjorn Schulke sets out to address it with his Drone #2. A drone is usually a pilotless surveillance aircraft. Schulke's is more a satellite-like construction, a big, spidery form suspended from the ceiling. It incorporates "solar cells, heat sensors, propellers, videochips and a TFT monitor," and it is a beautiful object.

Beautiful, but a bit spooky, because its heat sensors respond to the human presence and it begins to behave in a way that suggests it's observing us. Although it looks fragile and elegant, it unmistakably dominate the space. Yet the aesthetic qualities of Drone #2 probably win out over the political. There is a distinct feeling that Schulke loves the technology, loves the forms, the sensitivities, the possibilities.

Saoirse Higgins blends science and superstition in her ingenious R>EMOTE. She has made an elaborate combination of hardware and software that functions like a computerised tarot-card reader. Based on the imprint of your palm, it produces an emotional report card, delivered in the form of a print-out, that might just offer some real insight into your character. Given that people are fascinated by those who claim to be able to offer such insights, this could be a popular machine. During the exhibition, Higgins also has a human tarot reader on hand.

There's a touch of technological Beckett to Jeremy Deadman's Electric Head. It is simple in conception. An electric razor with a frayed power cord lies on the ground. As the current intermittently flows the motor buzzes and dies.

What is perhaps surprising is the extent to which we impute expressiveness to the sound produced through a random pattern of contact and separation. But then we routinely speak of batteries being dead, or something with electric current running through it as being alive.

Janusz Grunspek directly addresses the crossover between technology and emotion with his series of appliances, including an invaluable little gizmo for rating friendship - simply have your pal touch the machine's two electrodes and it will offer you an immediate measure of the level of empathy between you. Grunspek's gadgets are acutely judged, but the strength of his work also lies in its high production values.

The imaginary products are offered to us in a showroom setting.

Simon Lewandowski's drawing machine appeals to the cute and zany side of technological intelligence. A convoluted assemblage of functional looking components, with a nod to Jean Tinguely's purposeless, self-defeating kinetic sculptures, it produces, displays and then conveniently shreds drawings. Their residue, in the form of paper strips, accumulate on the gallery floor.

All in all, a model of futility, but a good-humoured one. Humour is an element in most of the work in what is a very good show.