Inspiration - Project Oscillon

Dark Matter Berlin

DARK MATTER is a parallel cosmos of expansive light installations where the boundaries between the real and the digital world blur. Visitors embark on a journey through seven partly interactive works, where light, movement, and sound fuse into emotional choreographies of luminous shapes and colors.

Unknown Label

In 2018, legacy car manufacturers such as Mercedes, BMW, and Audi, taken aback by the advents of Google and Tesla, invested a lot of money in research on autonomous vehicles. They gathered an immense amount of images taken by their cars that they needed to process in order to train their algorithms. This process, called "image segmentation", consists in manually outlining and labelling elements of interest in the image. It is very labor intensive and still cannot be automatized, it is thus outsourced to online micro-workers from the Global South. Unknown Label explores the daily reality of online micro-workers from Venezuela, Kenya, and the Philippines who annotate images for self-driving cars. It investigates the power asymmetries and neocolonialist exploitation involved in the human labor necessary to train AI systems, but also the many micro-gestures of resistance that workers share on private groups.

I'm Feeling Lucky

I'm Feeling Lucky is a real-time computer-generated animation that questions relationships to image, geography, virtual space, historical media technology, and mass data collection systems. The work features a 3D virtual landscape that is both historically and geographically ambiguous, generated in real-time using game engine technology. This virtual landscape is then populated with thousands of figures sourced from the vast pool of 360-degree image data collected by Google Street View. These figures are processed through a deep neural network, so they become three-dimensional models in the virtual space, each frozen in their captured pose. The work interrogates mass image collection systems, as many of these individuals may not have been aware that their photo was taken by Google, let alone anticipate being placed in this new, strange setting. Many thousands of figures sourced from all over the world are randomly selected to inhabit the endless landscape together.

Future Affair

This multimedia installation consists of two isolated hubs that are part warped confessional, part hallucinatory phone booth. One of the hubs contains a control panel sculpture, while the other hub houses the caressing machine: heated robotic silicone fingers that, once the consent button has been pushed, respond in accordance with the first hub’s interactive sculpture. Thus, it is the participants themselves who, upon entering these hubs, bring to life the defamiliarising sensory realm that is Future Affair. Their physical contact with the objects in each hub allows a thrilling abstracted communication to develop between participants.

Mother & Child

Two robotic arms (not in captivity), that display the intuitive, emotional bond between a mother and a child. The work is the result of four months of research on the topic of intuition which narrowed down to the intuitive relationship between a mother and a child. The paradox in the work being robots that display this scene, while the spectators don't doubt this relationship for a second. Until the brain takes over and corrects our belly for creating an emotional bond with the two robots.

2doc Podcast: Wij zijn de robots

This Dutch podcast from 2doc delves into the increasing presence of robots in our lives, exploring how they are becoming more human-like while we, in turn, adopt more machine-like qualities. How do we as human relate to robots? Rene van Es explores this topic in "Wij zijn de robots". To find an answer he brings together artists and theater makers who approach the topic from a creative and philosophical perspective, instead of a viewpoint of efficiency.

Can't Help Myself

Can't Help Myself is an iconic robotic installation that explores the complex relationship between control, automation, and human emotion. Presented at the Venice Biennale, the work features an industrial robotic arm trapped in a repetitive and futile task: using a large brush to keep a constantly spreading pool of red liquid within a designated boundary. The movement of the machine is both precise and hauntingly organic, evoking a sense of desperation as it tirelessly attempts to control its environment. The paradox of the machine's mechanical efficiency and the emotional response it triggers in viewers creates a powerful commentary on the human condition, our obsession with control, and the inevitability of failure.