Antoine Catala
Embot (Teacher) [2014]
Mirror Stage: Visualizing the Self After the Internet
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas [link]
The video Embot (Teacher) addresses the relationship between humans and machines, specifically technological advances made in Artificial Intelligence. Catala’s video portrait is a computer animated young boy who speaks with an emotionless human voice, expressing statements such as “I’m alive” or “I’m hungry”. Unlike the characters in the films Chappie and Ex Machina, this boy’s expressions and gestures are a bit off, suggesting he hasn’t yet mastered human qualities and emotions. Feeling embarrassed at the machine’s inadequate attempts to evoke human emotion, we are further discomfited by the knowledge that our uniqueness could be replicable, rendering us obsolete.
~ Colette Copeland
images courtesy of the DMA
