Next up in our program this summer: Soft Materials, by Daria Martin, “is a 16mm film shot in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Zurich where scientists research ’embodied artificial intelligence’. This cutting edge area of AI produces robots which, rather than being programmed from the head down by a computer brain, instead learn to function through the experience of their physical bodies. ” – quoted from the website of the Showroom, London.

“Soft Materials introduces the robots to two performers, one man and one woman, trained in body awareness and acutely sensitive to the nuances of movement. These performers shed skins of soft fabric, bearing their joints like the frank structure of a machine, and then, naked, they perform a series of dances with the robots. Creating intimate relationships that are in turn tender, funny and eerie, they bend flexible human fantasy around tough materials.” – quoted from the website of the Showroom, London.

More info found here.

Original artwork: 16mm film. Presented here as a digital projection for the purposes of this screening only.