Publication quai Branly Museum Paris

I recently recieved the new Gradhiva magazine (nr.15), a 240 page publication from the quai Branly Museum in Paris. Roughly translated the title of this issue is ‘Strangly human robots’. The magazine features some unique historic and contemporary images of automata and androids, amongst them are two of my pieces.  Authors Denis Vidal and Emmanuel Grimaud share their ideas about what is at stake when we give a robot a human appearance, developing a comparative anthropology of artificial creatures in all their diversity (from automata of ancient India to the latest creations of sex toys androids and Japanese puppets). The authors look at those moments that require human interaction, when we are confronted with ourselves and have to establish a new relationship to objects that mirror our own image, objects that can generate as much discomfort as empathy. To do this, they try to free the humanoid robotics from their prophetic discourse that often accompanies it for better understanding of the contemporary issues, including using an accurate ethnography of laboratory practice. In an interdisciplinary approach , the journal Gradhiva brings with it a number unique contribution to the study of anthropomorphic machines. The great selection of rare photography alone is worth to get a copy if you are interested in the subject.

http://gradhiva.revues.org/