Jordan Wolfson
‘The robotic sculpture in Jordan Wolfson’s Female figure (2014) is plainly not a woman--and yet. Wolfson gave it a curvy, scantily clad body, but also exposed, factory-like metal joints; red, pillowy lips; flowing, Monroe-ish hair; and a long, hooked green nose like something out of The Witches. This combination of sensuality and Goya-esque grotesquerie is textbook uncanniness, haunting in a way that neither would be on its own.
Watch a seven-minute video captured at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and you’ll see Wolfson’s robot do many things. It mumbles. It has a conversation with itself. It dances to Paul Simon and Lady Gaga. It shakes its ass. Most jarringly of all, it stares straight into the camera. Even as I told myself there was nothing behind its glaring face, I couldn’t force myself to stare back—the illusion that I was confronting a person was too powerful, and too painful. In this way, Female figure sums up a paradox that most tech developers seem not to recognize: The robots that inhabit the uncanny valley—in other words, the ones that are almost, but not quite, life-like—are often the most human.’
Thinking about the uncanny in art, Wolfson's robotic figure is life like and also not, an uncomfortable mix.
Arn, J. (2019) Why Artists Love the Eerie Sensation of Characters That Look Almost Human Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artists-love-eerie-sensation-characters-human (Accessed: 27 August 2020)
Watch a seven-minute video captured at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and you’ll see Wolfson’s robot do many things. It mumbles. It has a conversation with itself. It dances to Paul Simon and Lady Gaga. It shakes its ass. Most jarringly of all, it stares straight into the camera. Even as I told myself there was nothing behind its glaring face, I couldn’t force myself to stare back—the illusion that I was confronting a person was too powerful, and too painful. In this way, Female figure sums up a paradox that most tech developers seem not to recognize: The robots that inhabit the uncanny valley—in other words, the ones that are almost, but not quite, life-like—are often the most human.’
Thinking about the uncanny in art, Wolfson's robotic figure is life like and also not, an uncomfortable mix.
Arn, J. (2019) Why Artists Love the Eerie Sensation of Characters That Look Almost Human Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artists-love-eerie-sensation-characters-human (Accessed: 27 August 2020)