ART FROM THE MACHINE: Gleams of the Inhuman


…/… works such as Dog[LAB]01 demonstrate how this methodology allows for social critique. In this project, not only is the technological device appropriated, but also the agenda of the cultural system that produced the device in the first place. This is an excellent way of freeing the artist's hand from the representational process, as the expressive language available to the device is limited to its own, highly politicised properties.

 

About Dog[LAB]01 – France CADET

The manner in which a “robot dog” has been appropriated, rather than fabricated, is a very useful method for removing the “artist’s hand” from the semiotic structures at work in this project. Of course, this is a “dog” that has previously been commercially appropriated, providing scope for critical social comment within the work. This balance between critique and self-representation is what makes this project successful: cloning becomes a methodology for birthing an independent, self organising structure, whilst simultaneously challenging its social and commercial implications.

James Coupe
London, March 2004