Thinking Like a Machine

Exhibition and robotics workshop

with Austrian artist Niki Passath

opening reception July 20, 7pm – 9pm

robotic workshop July 20, 12pm – 7pm

exhibition July 20 – July 21, gallery hours noon – 8pm

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the human, especially the working human, has increasingly adapted to a coexistence with machines. The human has become a prosthesis for the non-organic body of the industrial factory. During early adaptation this occurred mainly on the material body, the hardware of humanity. Simple repetitive movements on the assembly line became the tasks of the workers to fulfill those duties the machine could not.

The promise was that humans of the future will not have to work, machines will lighten the load. However, the importance of ones identity being tied to her/his occupation became increasingly socially relevant.

With the invention of the computer, machines have moved away from hardware towards software; machines began to acquire a brain. In this new epoch, is it possible that human are still a prostheses of the machine? Now not only attached to the body but also an amendment to its thinking? It can seem that with the wish of creating machines that think like humans, we have also created humans that think like machines.

More and more a human defines itself by the work it does, no-matter how unnecessary or meaningless this activity is. It is often the case today that there is no need for working humans, as artificially intelligent systems can control and realize the whole cycle of industrial production. What do we do now that the human is redundant?

During the workshop participants will work with Austrian artist and Flux resident Niki Passath to create a robot from scratch. These robots will act together to become an amalgamated body, which will perform during the opening reception. The reception and exhibition will feature the robots made during the workshop.

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