Ryoji Ikeda |

The Grand Palais (RMN) in Paris is currently showing an impressive exhibition ‘Artists and Robots’ dedicated to AI: artificial imagination, a common term to design robotic art, generative art and algorithmic art.

The exhibition invites audiences to experience works created by artists with the aid of ever more intelligent robots. Around thirty works offer visitors a glimpse into an immersive and interactive virtual world, a tangible experience of augmented reality, of space and time overturned.

Artificial intelligence is now transforming human existence and also affecting the very nature of the artist’s artwork , from its production, exhibition, to its distribution, conservation and reception.

Immersive works, paintings, sculptures, mobiles, cinema, design, and music: all the creations presented in this exhibition arise from artists working with robotic programs invented and provided for the purpose of art.

With the use of increasingly powerful software, artists gain a greater autonomy and an infinite capacity to work with shapes and interactivity. The software programs employed are not only intelligent, but also generate new shapes and figures that allow to see and give pause for thought.

The exhibition is structured in three folds.
The first section present ‘The creative machine’. Robots are always on the move and their movements are sometimes so ‘physical’ and amusing that it is could be easy to give them an animal or human dimension, or even a ‘psychology’.
Featuring works by Jean Tinguely, Nam June Paik, Nicolas Schöffer, Leonel Moura, Patrick Tresset, So Kanno and Takahiro Yamaguchi, J. Lee Thompson, Arcangelo Sassolino.

The second section is about ‘Programmed artwork’, where the robot is becoming invisible. Computing and algorithmic programmes infuse the artwork and technical expertise is set aside as we, the spectators, marvel at the majesty of infinite shapes that change according to the movements of our bodies.

Featuring works by Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnar, Iannis Xenakis, Demian Conrad, Raquel Kogan, Ryoji Ikeda, Pascal Dombis, Elias Crespin, Jacopo Baboni Schilingi, Edmond Couchot and Michel Bret, Miguel Chevalier, Joan Fontcuberta, Michael Hansmeyer and Peter Kogler.

And lastly the space is dedicated to ‘The robot frees itself’.
Deep Learning is making robots even more intelligent and active, to the point where they seem not only to rival humans, but to augment them, fuse with them, taunt them and possibly even duplicate them.

Featuring works by Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Catherine Ikam and Louis Fléri, Stelarc, Nicolas Darrot, Fabien Giraud and Raphaël Siboni, Koji Fukada, Oscar Sharp, Daft Punk, Pascal Haudressy, Memo Akten, ORLAN, Takashi Murakami.

The contemporary works presented in this exhibition give us a good idea of the questions artists are asking, which mirror our own: What is an artist? What is an artwork? What can a robot achieve that an artist cannot? If it has artificial intelligence, does a robot have imagination? Who decides: the artist, the engineer, the spectator, all of us? Can we talk about a collective artwork?

View the full set of pics here

Artists & Robots
Le Grand Palais
Until 8 July 2018

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Lisson Gallery, the gallery is partnering with The Vinyl Factory to stage an ambitious group exhibition called ‘EVERYTHING AT ONCE‘, inspired by a quote by John Cage in 1966 “Nowadays everything happens at once and our souls are conveniently electronic (omniattentive).”

More than ever before, contemporary art, like life, assaults us simultaneously from all angles and from anywhere on the globe, existing also as multi-sensory visions of an accelerated world. Time and space are no longer rational or linear concepts and great distances can be traversed with an instantaneous click.

Through 45 new and historical works by 24 artists, ‘Everything at once’ is a multi-sensorial experience, an interconnected journey exploring effect and event, invoking immediacy and immutability in the 180 Strand building, home to the Vinyl Factory.

Participating artists include :
MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ – AI WEIWEI – ALLORA & CALZADILLA – ART & LANGUAGE – CORY ARCANGEL – TONY CRAGG – RICHARD DEACON – NATHALIE DJURBERG & HANS BERG – CEAL FLOYER – RYAN GANDER – DAN GRAHAM – RODNEY GRAHAM – SUSAN HILLER – SHIRAZEH HOUSHIARY – ANISH KAPOOR – LEE UFAN – RICHARD LONG – HAROON MIRZA – TATSUO MIYAJIMA – JULIAN OPIE – LAURE PROUVOST – WAEL SHAWKY – LAWRENCE WEINER – STANLEY WHITNEY

In parallel to the exhibition, Ryoji Ikeda’s ‘Test Pattern [No.12]’ – commissioned by Store X The Vinyl Factory – is a discombobulating experience, in which black and white bar code-like patterns pulse in the darkness. The Japanese artist and electronic composer converts data from music and photography into monochrome binary patterns, immersing gallery-goers in a dazzling kinetic environment.

To kick off the exhibition, the ground floor contains important sculptural statements from the last century by Anish Kapoor – At the Edge of the World II (1998) , a UFO like installation that floats above head height, receding seemingly impossibly into space and time – while Richard Deacon presents his own takes on materiality and multidimensionality.

Ai Weiwei’s giant wallpaper installation stretches 50m along the building and depicts people’s continuing movement across the globe, paired with a landscape of blasted tree roots – together speaking of displacement, conflict and alienation, a reference to the ongoing global refugee crisis.

Cory Arcangel’s video projection features ‘MIG 29 Soviet Fighter Plane and Clouds’ depicting elements of a hacked video game from the early 1990s.

Richard Long created a 60-metre long mud work called ‘Pelopennese Line’, using his hands dipped in slip from the river Avon.

Stanley Whitney is exploring the formal possibilities of colour within ever-shifting grids of multi-hued blocks inspired by music and dance.

Works by Ryan Gander present four metallic sentinels in dramatic postures displaying a range of emotions while remaining faceless, as well as a draped mirror and a stairway to Heaven.

Everything at Once - 180 Strand ‘

‘Minster’ totemic sculptures by Tony Cragg built from scraps of rubber, stone, wood and metal recall the spires of a cathedral .

Susan Hiller’s installation entitled Channels, showcases a series of 104 analogue television screens with a collection of audio accounts and oscilloscope recordings of people who have experienced death and returned to tell the tale. These vivid stories in many different languages constitute a remarkable contemporary archive, whether the accounts are regarded as metaphors, misconceptions, myths, delusions or truths.