Thanks WRO for the fantastic opening week of the HUMAN ASPECT, Media Art Biennale WRO 2019 .
In the format of a performative installation visitors could spend intimate moments with the swarm.
Through the setting in a completely dark space humans got soaked into the swirling light pool of robotic creatures. Taking off their shoes and being very careful visitors made first contact with this new species, that shares motion and behaviors, positions in space and a changing need for closeness and distance as a mutual language. Sometimes scared to be run over by a storm of giant humans, sometimes angry about this lack of space, but most often friendly, playful and totally curious about the humans.
Interacting, meditating, playing rough and dancing smoothly – we received a lot of great feedback about the man-machine bonding time of the people of Wroclaw and our Empathy Swarm. We got especially touched by a young boy who came repeatedly, feeling responsible for the robots and talking about nothing else to his mom until they came back.
It was great to explore and experiment at Grotowski Institute in the center of Wroclaw’s lovely old town! We enjoyed being part of the multitude of fantastic art, events and performances all over the city, meeting old and new friends and celebrating the 30th anniversary of WRO!
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through
the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
