Amygdala, 2018, robotic installation
In collaboration with Neurobotics Research Laboratory and Ana Rajcevic.
Amygdala, named after the area in the brain where emotions are stored and processed, is an uncanny robot arm driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Attentive, repetitive and self-steering, the robot learns a form of ritual “skin-cutting” by training on its own body. Performance artist Marco Donnarumma refers to still-existing age-old traditions in which this type of purification rituals are often a condition for entering certain social groups. Because the purification ritual in this work is performed by an AI, it could be read as a symbol for our technocratic society in which more and more social codes are determined by algorithms.
Marco Donnarumma – Concept, research, artistic direction and programming
Prof. Alberto de Campo – Additional programming and research
Christian Schmidts – 3D modeling and printing
Rosalie Laurin – Exhibit design research
Retune Festival – Co-production
Berlin University of the Arts, Graduiertenschule – Funding
Einstein Stiftung – Funding
Berlin Center for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences – In kind support
Baltan Laboratories – In kind support / Dissemination
