Art and robots. That seems to be in contrast with each other, but in the Robot Love Expo Experience in Eindhoven, we see that artists indeed take the relationship between humans and robots, and artificial intelligence (AI), as the starting point for their art. The androids are coming…
L.A. Raeven is an artist duo consisting of the identical twins Liesbeth and Angelique (1971, Heerlen). We know L.A. Raeven of their photo works, videos and performances on themes such as beauty ideals and body cult. With their work they comment on contemporary obsessions with food, the making of the perfect body and the compelling demand of society to be a so-called ideal individual. Sometimes they themselves can be seen in their art works, sometimes we see young people struggling in one way or another with the pressure of society to meet expectations that are not always or not at all possible to meet.
L.A. Raeven. Annelies, work in progress. Edwin Dertien en Remie Bakker. Photo L.A. Raeven
In Annelies, Looking for Completion, the art work that the Niet Normaal Foundation commissioned for Robot Love, L.A Raeven wonder what it would be like if one has the opportunity to copy oneself or a loved one. Can one hold back the fear of being abandoned? To research these questions, L.A. Raeven made a third sister, Annelies, an android robot, the first Dutch android. Lots of research and preparation preceded the making of Annelies. Liesbeth and Angelique travelled to Japan to meet with Hiroshi Ishiguro, the master of the androids. Ishiguro already made a robot look-alike ten years ago and then another one and another one. In the meantime ten years went by and Ishiguro no longer resembles his robots, or better, himself. To tackle this problem he does not make a new robot looking like himself, but he underwent the necessary surgical procedures. The reason, he ones said, is that cosmetic surgery is cheaper and that he does not like to grow old. L.A. Raeven do not have to concern themselves with those issues yet, they have their new third sister to deal with, who although being programmed, has her own dynamic. The question of how Annelies will behave in Robot Love and whether she can help her sisters answering their essential life questions, we will have to see for ourselves in Robot Love.
