Imprévisions météorologiques
Florent Veilleux, 1941-
1996
Montréal, Québec, Canada
Lumino-kinetic work, mixed media
Collection of the artist
Photo: Courtesy of la Société des arts indisciplinés
ciété des arts indisciplinés

A robot with a soul, this humanized sculpture is the work of a folk artist who makes kinetic installations from the scraps of our industrialized, computerized consumer society. Is it the human heart that transforms mechanical perfection into imperfection?
 

Sculpture
Rosario Gauthier
XXth century
Québec, Canada
Painted wood and fibers
Collection: Musée de la civilisation, Québec, Canada
1988-4140

 

Sculpture
Rosario Gauthier
XXth century
Québec, Canada
Painted wood
Collection: Musée de la civilisation, Québec, Canada
1988-4318

We are imperfect. When I’m naked, I’m a sorry sight in the eyes of nature. But I dream, I imagine, I create a world in which I am everything and I can do anything. I steal identities, I metamorphose, I slither into another skin, I am invisible, I’m quick as lightning, perfect in every way. Machines have multiplied our powers, increased our precision and conquered our fatigue. We’re like machines. With this strength behind us, we’re now advancing on intelligence itself. We project ourselves into artificial intelligence. The projection distorts still further, becoming a universal screen. Anything to avoid being oneself. But in the face of a virtual identity we are naked, naked as ever. My dream is in the screen, my power is in the instrument. I have delegated my magic away.

 
Metissage – the human and the machine

Human beings have always sought to surpass their biological limits by projecting themselves on to superhuman artificial creations. One of these fantasies is the mechanical man.

According to each era, robots have emerged from the fields of mechanics, automation, robotics. In the information era “avatars” are the most recent generation of automatons, digitized beings who inhabit computers and especially the virtual worlds of the Internet.

“Avatar” originally meant reincarnated beings. Today the word evokes the human artefact as a data unit, the real body having been replaced by digital images and artifical intelligence. On the Internet we project ourselves in the form of artifical creatures and adopt multiple identities to escape our limitations.

For the time being, humanoids are still ruled by flesh and blood. A true human-machine hybrid is only possible in the imaginary world of science fiction, which can conjure up machines that are autonomous and independent, even beyond our control.