JUSTINE EMARD

Co(AI)xistence and Soul Shift (Embedded Separate)

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Video installations by French artist Justine Emard:

"Her artworks explore the new relationships that are being established between our existences and technologies. By combining different image medias – from photography to video and virtual reality – she situates her work at the intersection between neurosciences, objects, organic life and artificial intelligence."

Co(AI)xistence:

"This artwork is lead as an experience, creating an artistic interface between data and human motion...existence presumes being in reality and/or being alive. Through experience, the human and the robot try to define new perspectives of coexistence in the world."

In this work I like the idea of the contrast of organic and artificial. Although the robot is designed to look humanoid, it cannot aesthetically compare to the organic appearance of the real human. However, there is still an undeniable connection between the two based on their similarity - I think this helps to emphasise the difference between the two types of existence and perhaps even 'consciousness'. The uncanny effect of the robot's face, and its deliberately exposed machinery, makes it separate from humanity but perhaps not inferior, only different...?

In terms of my own art it represents a level of interaction that I can't really afford to make in my own work - my absolute ideal would be to use motion capture and similar coded, responsive functions to make art that responds to the viewer in real time like this. It is especially effective with this work because the movement is another layer of contrast between the two 'forms' beyond the aesthetics.

Soul Shift:

"Soul Shift is the promise of a possible meeting with an earlier version of oneself. Alter is a humanoid robot that awakens to the world when someone activates it. Its singularity lies in its movements, which no human has ever experienced before since they are created with extreme precision by an artificial intelligence. Sensors provide information to its neural network based on which it invents gestures within the constraints of its limbs. When Alter discovers its lookalike yet inactive robot, the memory or “spirit” of Alter 1 is transferred to Alter 2, reminding a form of reincarnation, but without flesh. Face to face, the active Alter appears intrigued by the inertia of this other from which he came, to the point of approaching it in a movement of recognition and affection."

This video is so different and interesting because it shows a totally non-human interaction. The idea of the robot feeling recognition and affection for its old self doesn't seem literal (the robot does not have true consciousness) - I think it means that the robot's calculated, 'false' interactions appearing to recognise its old self lets the human mind create fictions about the interaction and add meaning and depth that isn't objectively there.

I love this use of the idea of evolution and "meeting an earlier version of oneself" and how this could apply to ourselves rather than a robot - it reminds me of the research I did into simulation theory (the idea that we could be living in a simulated reality created by our future selves for them to study their ancestors). I wonder what it would look like if the subject of the art was a future version of a human (a virtual body? A robot? A disembodied AI?), looking back on us - and we are the 'switched off' old robot. If I made it more closely linked to simulation theory then it could be interesting to think about how we really are switched off like the robot in the video, unaware of the observation and affection of the future self.

https://justineemard.com/coaixistence-2/

https://justineemard.com/biography/

https://justineemard.com/soul-shift-2/

PHASE 2 RESEARCH

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