Artists Statement

1/human (inverse human) is a robotic device that can be attached to the upper body. By operating the controller on the left hand a user can ‘teach’ the robotic exoskeleton covering the right arm various movements. ln the teaching programme muscular autonomy is conceded to mechanical autonomy: the arm moves the machine until the machine moves the arm.Th e robot’s microprocessor monitors arm movements, and learns common patterns that are executed by the arm. After a time the robots artificial intelligence algorithms create new patterns based on the separate movements. At this time the processor begins to manage the movements of the arm, forcing its artificially intelligent processes upon the wearer. This configuration traces the role of technology, where technology is the imposition of human thought and will upon non-human matter. Mechanisms, electronics, and computers replicate human processes and thoughts in such a way that non-human “thoughts” and “will” are possible. Though on one level this meta-human machinic thought gains patterns from the human, these non-human thoughts also re define what it means to be a human, especially within industrialized societies. 1/Human achieves this by surrounding the body, intersecting it by projecting machinic will within the human; at the same time allowing human will to project into the robot using artificial computer learning. Artificial learning maps human will into binary code, the translatable, transferable, and universal language of machine will. Machine will then redefines the human encased by 1/human as the mechanism begins to dominate the human’s activity. In the end, the human is a prosthetic for larger incomprehensible structures-structures that result from an on going dialectic between technology and human will over the course of history.

• Peter Coppin (USA), Centre for Metahuman Exploration, Carnegie Mellon University. The Centre for Metahuman Exploration produces events that “manufacture the present tense” by creating / mediating relationships between people and themselves through tile use of live “interactive” television, robotics and telephone technologies. Currently located at Carnegie Mellon University, the Centre combines expertise from art, robotics, and television. Recent projects include “boundary link”, an installation that allows a conversation between festival attendees and residents at maximum security detention facility. Other projects, such as The Interactive Television Show, and Absentee Ballot, alter the normally passive flow of live television by allowing viewers to affect elements of tile show by using their touch-tone telephones.