Random International: 15 Points
Le Laboratoire, Cambridge, MA
Spring 2016
Production | Exhibition Grant
Random International’s 15 Points (2014) is a kinetic installation developed by the artists following their residency with a robotics research group led by Harvard professor Robert Lowe. Working at the intersection of art and scientific theory, and drawing from the Picasso-Einstein tradition, 15 Points constitutes both minimalist sculpture and an experiment in the radical abstraction of the human form and its movement, in both time and space.
Through the miniscule manipulation of fifteen light points’ movements, the installation generates the perception of a human being for the viewer. Beyond this highly nuanced humanoid rendering, 15 Points explores the particularities of perception and our ability to recognize this motion as animate versus purely mechanical. Conceptually, the project investigates the uncanny valley phenomenon – the subject of extensive research at present – through point-light representations of human motion and the first 3-D rendering via robotic implementation.
To learn more, visit Le Laboratoire, Cambridge.