amazing
posted 06/29
This association to the idea that robots might “double” for family members brings to mind a story I heard when I first visited Japan in the early 1990s. The problems of the elderly loomed large. Unlike in previous generations, children were mobile, and women were in the workforce. Aging and infirm parents were unlikely to live at home. Visiting them was harder; they were often in different cities from their children. In response, some Japanese children were hiring actors to substitute for them and visit aging parents. The actors would visit and play their parts. Some of the elderly parents had dementia and might not have known the difference. Most fascinating were reports about the parents who knew that they were being visited by actors. They took the actors’ visits as a sign of respect, enjoyed the company, and played the game. When I expressed surprise at how satisfying this seemed for all concerned, I was told that in Japan being elderly is a role, just as being a child is a role. Parental visits are, in large part, the acting out of scripts. The Japanese valued the predictable visits and well-trained and courteous actors.
Sherry Turkle, Alone Together
anatomy riot #42: performances inspired by machines
posted 06/25
Co-curated with Megan May Daalder.
Featuring performance works by: Katie Ammons, David Leonard, Christopher Richmond, Gustavo Cordova, Johanna Reed, Megan May Daalder, Adam Overton, Alison D’amato, Emily Beattie, Kristin Lucas, Tiffany Sum, Alex Shilling, Gabbie Bautista, Priscialla Brinshot, Gustavo Cordova, Dongyi Wu.
How would people appear if you were transported to a near future time where all machines were invisible? Or to a distant past where, suddenly stripped all gadgetry, you were left only with muscle memory and oral history? How do aging systems respond to the transposition of more recent technological metaphors and customs onto non-technological environments?
By using the body as the primary point of reference, the works in this show reveal adaptive or misplaced behaviors that would ordinarily be mediated by machines.