Interview with Bill Vorn./ amber09
Which art project do you attend the Amber Festival with?
Hysterical Machines.
What is your aim with your art work?
The aim of this project is to create an illusion of life with machines and induce empathy from the viewers towards creatures which are nothing else than articulated metal structures.
How does your project works?
Sensors allow the robots to detect the presence of viewers in the nearby environment. The machines react to the viewers according to the amount of stimuli they receive. The more viewers there is and the closer they are to the robots will make them react accordingly.
Could you describe your process of creation?
I always start with a general theme, like “the misery of the machines” and then I try to build robots that are evoking this theme in one way or another.
How long have you been producing digital art?
I started making robotic art installations in 1992.
How do you describe your art as an artist using technology?
My art is based on technology, it would not exist without it. Except that it is not about technology, it is about life and living beings.
What made you choose digital media as medium?
I started as a musician making electronic music, then I got interested in computers and interactivity. Robotics became something interesting for me because it allows me to use many medias in a single medium.
Do you have aesthetic concerns while producing your art?
Of course, otherwise I would not call that “Robotic Art”. My main concern is make machines that look like machines and not like some kind of Disneyland robot. I make machines that have a very abstract visual aspect, but they stimulate the reflex of anthropomorphism simply by the way they react to the viewers presence.
What do you think about the literal and figurative integrations of the human body and technology?
I’m not interested by the man-machine integration but the man-machine relationship.
What we may become as a result of our increasing engagements with technology?
In the future, we’re simply going to become more dependent on technology, like a shortsighted person becomes dependent on his glasses.
Interview: Çiğdem Zeytin
