Materials: Painted wood table, Paper, photographer’s black tape. Robots: polycarbonate plastic, permanent magnet direct current gear motors, electronic circuits, rechargeable twelve-volt battery. (One of the robots has a pencil clamped to it. The other robot has an eraser. There is also a battery charger that can charge both batteries at the same time.) Size: The table is forty inches tall and thirty five inches by forty nine inches across. Each of the two robots is twelve inches by eleven inches and eight inches tall. This work is in part about the creative process. It is also about how reality constantly changes. The two robots interact with each other. One of them draws straight lines, arcs circles, zigzags, and combinations of all of these. The other robot erases what has been drawn. It moves forward and back repeatedly. Each time it moves forward a little more than it moves back, thus proceeding across the paper, slicing straight white lines through the patterns rendered by the other robot. When the robots reach the edge of the paper, they see the black tape and this causes them to turn away from falling off the table and proceed in a different direction. The front bumpers have sensors so that when one of the robots runs into the other one, it turns away to avoid pushing its mate off the table. People often remark that the robots seem to have personalities, that they seem to be a couple. Dekooning and Rauchenburg come to mind.
"Remembering & Forgetting"
Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery presents
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