00:08 The idea comes from the experience of the exoskeleton in therapy,
00:12 because I have multiple sclerosis
00:14 and as part of the therapy sessions they offered me the possibility of using an exoskeleton.
00:20 And the first time that I used it was like an explosion in my imagination.
00:26 It’s like thousands of ideas occur to you,
00:29 including the idea that I was a superwoman, you know?
00:31 Because with these sounds I was a Robocop.
00:36 And so, from this idea other ideas began to emerge,
00:40 such as through a machine I can consider that my body is expanding.
00:46 This is a good day!
00:48 There’s a kind of moment when you don’t know where you begin
00:51 and the machine ends or what you are doing, what you do or what the machine does.
00:55 There is a kind of line that becomes blurred and is erased.
01:05 And this initial approach that makes me a bit frightened on the one hand,
01:11 but on the other it also provides me with loads of really positive things,
01:15 so, starting out a bit from the interest I have in this and from conversations with Tekniker
01:20 we began to focus a bit more on what could be done at a more practical level.
01:29 Kaixo, egun on, hello.
01:33 Here we have 4 projects that later on each one of you will be explaining more clearly.
01:36 On the one hand we have a project with Amaia Vicente and Tekniker.
01:40 Amaia’s project poses a challenge for us in which
01:44 we can develop some ideas that we have had in this field.
01:50 We work in robotics, but our aim is to go further
01:56 in the contribution that we can make with our technology in society.
01:59 So, these questions can be explored really well
02:04 when you collaborate with someone who uses research methodologies that are different.
02:11 And in the preliminary conversations the idea of working with Ane already begins to emerge;
02:15 she also has an approach based on robotics,
02:19 but that is also based on applying social aspects as well.
02:23 I’ve always been really interested in the more human side of things:
02:26 how can I help to make this communication with the robot more visible?
02:32 So, we got involved in the world of augmented reality glasses
02:36 where the user sees their normal surroundings, but information is also superimposed on this.
02:43 Imagine that someone cannot move their hand.
02:44 So, the idea is for someone with something as simple as their gaze to be able to fix this on a spot,
02:51 and then this information is going to be sent to the robot
02:54 and the robot is going to identify that what it has to do is stand up.
02:58 So, my idea was to combine these two ideas:
03:02 Can glasses be used for this? Can the exoskeleton move like this?
03:06 Why don’t we combine these two devices?
03:08 That is, moving the exoskeleton not so much by putting it on,
03:11 but by doing this almost remotely or virtually.
03:19 I was interested in the technological side a bit,
03:21 or I mean, what social implications it may have.
03:24 And well, there’s been a lot of debate about
03:27 the uses that certain exoskeleton technologies
03:30 can be put to that are not just therapeutic.
03:34 I’m not going to mention what else they can be used for,
03:35 but we can imagine what this may be for and what implications it has…
03:41 This is based on the fear of robots that science fiction has always instilled in us to a large extent,
03:47 so that we are used to seeing robots applied in industry,
03:50 which are like huge machines that can destroy us.
03:53 My approach has to be much gentler,
03:56 I mean, how can I communicate with a robot but not be aggressive.
04:02 How can we give some thought to communication with the exoskeleton,
04:08 so that it is not a traditional master-servant relationship,
04:13 but is in a more symbiotic sense between two beings?
04:20 To a large extent we started out from the concept of ‘Mecha’,
04:23 which is the Anime genre in which they are giant robots guided by humans.
04:28 We also play a bit with the aesthetic of German expressionism
04:31 in those films like ‘Metropolis’, for example,
04:35 where technology was presented as a kind of monster, like a golem.
04:42 As soon as she began to explain to me what her aim was,
04:45 the first thing that came to mind was ‘Iron Man’, the mask that he has,
04:49 and she told us: “Yes, this is basically what I want to replicate”.
04:53 So, you try and find common threads to learn how to implement this.
05:03 I was expecting much more struggles for scientists to talk to artists
05:10 because it's sometimes a very different way of thinking.
05:14 But I think the great thing happening with the Tabakalera projects is a lot of the people from the science part
05:20 have a passion for art, have a curiosity,
05:23 and also see the creativity in scientific practices.
05:30 - When we met, I realised that you were coming as an:
05:33 ‘artist comes to Tekniker’ to meet some engineers who think hard and act tough.
05:39 - Yes, yes.
05:40 - It’s true. We are a technology centre
05:45 that basically carries out applied research to solve a specific problem that someone has,
05:51 and has to operate in a measurable way, etcetera.
05:56 In my creative process or on a personal level,
05:59 I start out from an idea that gradually becomes something more concrete, but it goes back to the abstract sphere…
06:05 I know I’m starting out from here, but I don’t know how far it’s going to go.
06:09 I think that on the techno-scientific side they do need to know the goal better,
06:14 because they are quite clear about their aim.
06:16 However, there is a research aspect,
06:20 that sometimes we don’t usually find the way to channel
06:23 and you have been the way to channel this,
06:26 which is the more speculative side of research.
06:31 We are giving them new problems and we are testing this robot.
06:36 So, not only Gogoan is interested in getting to know what limitations of its product are,
06:42 but Tekniker is also interested in this because it gives them more experience,
06:45 new opportunities and a testing ground.
06:49 And it also allows us to access materials and technology that we cannot have.
07:00 One of the aims of working like this is to normalise this common language.
07:06 We start out from a tradition that clearly distinguishes
07:10 what can be artistic work from what is practical work,
07:15 and perhaps culturally they are considered to be two quite distant areas…
07:21 But, in the end the path isn’t so different. Is it?
07:30 At first you are going to see a projected hologram.
07:35 Behind this the exoskeleton is going to be placed with its base in motion
07:39 and behind this, in turn, there is going to be a projection which is a face with an interface
07:44 and this is what is going to make the exoskeleton move.
07:48 That is, you are going to be able to move around and you are going to be able to see the three separate layers,
07:53 but what is interesting is to see them.
07:55 In actual fact, the hologram refers to a fictious character and is an immaterial body.
08:00 It’s called Kokoro 47.
08:03 Kokoro is a word that comes from Japanese and it is also a word that is a bit special,
08:07 because it includes the word “heart” or the word “mind”.
08:12 Although the exhibition is entitled ‘Exographies’,
08:16 I think that the subtitle should be “The fictions of the immaterial body”,
08:20 because the technological body, the techno-body,
08:24 is made up of a material part and an immaterial part, which is what cannot be seen, but is there.
08:30 One of the questions that she asks herself is:
08:32 why is this type of software that operates a prothesis like exoskeletons, closed-source software?
08:39 What does it mean that it is closed-source software?
08:40 That it is pre-designed in accordance with an idea of what is the right gesture or the right movement,
08:47 what is a healthy body or what is a body in balance,
08:49 what is a muscle with strength, etc.
08:51 So, there is an entire series of cultural,
08:54 political or social decisions that are included in the code,
08:58 in this entire framework of algorithms of screen biosensors, etc.
09:02 Sometimes we don’t realise to what extent the technical devices that we develop
09:07 are also shaping us.
09:09 That is, as a society,
09:11 we project certain ideas in these machines that we invent,
09:14 but this also comes back to us,
09:17 that is, it imposes certain closed models on us of how we have to move,
09:21 how we have to behave or be.
09:25 And this is to a certain extent the subject of my research.
09:28 How far is this process going to take us?
09:30 To what extent someone who needs to use an exoskeleton
09:33 to walk, as I myself do,
09:34 will reach a point when I no longer notice that I’m wearing an exoskeleton?
09:37 That is, that I’m wearing the exoskeleton, otherwise, I’m not me, am I?
09:40 I mean,
09:41 I talk a bit about this super-future vision, of course.
09:45 Maybe we won’t see it, but I know that it’s going to happen.
09:49 People are obsessed with technology,
09:53 but we're really bad at understanding technology,
09:56 and this is where art or the arts, and their capability and capacity to make sense of what is actually happening,
10:05 becomes really important.
Tabakalera 10
10:15
Tabakalera | Larruak eta izurrak
01:12
Tabakalera | ACTS - Máquinas de ingenio
03:22
Tabakalera | ACTS - 2020-2022 08:59
Tabakalera | ACTS - C. El punto justo del conflicto cognitivo
09:35
Tabakalera | ACTS - Sugar Detox Clinic
08:23
Tabakalera | ACTS - Compost Computacional
09:30
Reconstrucción
09:00
Tabakalera | That Time
01:10
Tabakalera, el camino recorrido 11:14
Tabakalera | Julio Le Parc
01:08
Tabakalera | Evil Eye 00:40
Tabakalera | ACTS - 2020-2022 - promo 01:08
Tabakalera-denbora | Vincent Maraval
09:44
Tabakalera-denbora | Uxue Alberdi
08:14
Tabakalera-denbora | Ted Hope 08:53