Looking for Signs of Life in the Uncanny Valley
Watching Sora's videos of Michael Jackson stealing a box of chicken nuggets or Sam Altman biting into the pink meat of a grilled Pikachu brought back memories of Ed Atkins Exhibition I saw it at Tate Britain a few months ago. Atkins is one of the most influential and disturbing British artists of his generation. He is best known for his hyper-detailed computer animations of himself (perfect skin, sudden movements) that play with the virtual representation of human emotions.
FROM ANY DEVELOPMENT: ARTIST, CABINET GALLERY, LONDON, DEPENDANCE, BRUSSELS, GLADSTONE GALLERY.
IN Worm we see computer artist Atkins making a long-distance call to his mother during the Covid lockdown. The audio is taken from a recording of a real conversation. Are we watching Atkins cry or his avatar? Our attention fluctuates between two realities. “When an actor breaks character during a scene, it's called corpsing,” Atkins said. “I want everything I do to turn into a corpse.” Compared to Atkins's work, generative videos look like cardboard cutouts: realistic, but not alive.
A dark and dirty book about a talking dingo.
What is it like to be a pet? The debut novel by Australian writer Laura Jean Mackay. Animals in this countrywill make you wish you had never asked. A pandemic like the flu leaves room for people to hear what animals have to say. If this sounds a little too “Doctor Dolittle” to you, rest assured: these animals are weird and nasty. Often they don't even make any sense.
SCRIBE
Now that everyone is talking to their computers, McKay's book throws off the anthropomorphic trap we've all fallen into. This is a brilliant representation of what non-human intelligence can contain.—and thinking about strong communication boundaries.
