Zakar at BAAF

Tobia 

Tobia is a speculative robotic apparatus that, like an uncanny plant, reacts to the external stimuli coming from the surrounding environment. Tobia “sees” light through as a series of eyes scattered on its skin, or more simply a 360° eye. Therefore, it also detects a human presence in the surrounding. In response, the creature reacts to human engagement with unpredictable movements, activating with visitors a dialogue through a form of optic and haptic communication.
Tobia* is part of an ongoing research project called Towards a new Liminality, an experimental setup of dialogue between human beings and digitally fabricated non-human entities. The project delves into speculative ways of cohabitation of
organic and inorganic matter. With the attempt to leave behind the anthropocentric supremacy of the two-eyed observer, Towards a new Liminality opens up the contemplation of different forms of intelligence, whether artificial or not, examining ways of sensing beyond those coming using two eyes, a brain, a nose, and a mouth.

Zakar – Rethinking public space in times of A.I.

What if the public space itself can transform its architecture according to that incoming stream of data instead of by complicated, bureaucratic, top-down political decisions? Zakar is a speculative, free-flowing beatnik poetry video exploration on a self-organized AI public space that transforms according to the real-time data input on viral and microscopic populations that inhabits it. The urban touch-less design, the multiple screens measuring temperature and displaying updates of daily cases, were the most prominent transformation of the public realm during the thickest part of the lockdown.

 The pandemic revealed our condition as vectors for transmission, of how microscopic life and information is attached to every trace of movement we make, and how any action has consequences. The next public space is defined by the constant sampling of its microscopic components, how by means of advances in AI supervised recognition and DNA barcoding it now becomes possible to model the bacterial and viral loads that inhabit public spaces alongside us.

 It is perhaps this the only way in which our living environments can respond to the huge levels of complexity disclosed from this microscopic reality.

Towards a new Liminality

Towards a new Liminality is an experimental setup of dialogue between human beings and digitally fabricated non-human entities. The project delves into speculative ways of cohabitation of
organic and inorganic matter. With the attempt to leave behind the anthropocentric supremacy of the two-eyed observer, Towards a new Liminality opens up the contemplation of different forms of intelligence, whether artificial or not, examining ways of sensing beyond those coming using two eyes, a brain, a nose, and a mouth.

e-S-chatology

The film follows the lifestyle of a zero-waste blogger as she explains her daily routine of recycling, biochemistry, and symbiotic relationship with machines.
The film was produced over 10 days in December utilizing a 6-axis robot with an emphasis on using sensors to translate human bodily reactions into data for the robot to receive. The film, in the style of a pseudo-documentary, is following a fictional blogger who promotes her own zero-waste lifestyle. On her blog, she writes about the benefits of reducing waste whilst selling her own homemade recycled products that can be used in gardening and food production.

The movie has been screened during the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 as part of the exhibition “digital disobedience”.