Amygdala
An artificially intelligent (AI) prosthesis. Its only aim is to learn a purification ritual of “skin-cutting” found in animistic societies, so it trains on its own body, endlessly.
Amygdala (2017-2018) is an artificially intelligent (AI) robot in the form of an uncanny human-like limb hung inside an industrial-grade computer server cabinet. Disturbing and yet sensual, abject and sinuous, Amygdala uses a knife to manipulate and sculpt a large piece of skin.
Its labour is repetitive, careful and never ending. The robot’s only aim is, in fact, to learn a ritual of purification known as “skin-cutting”. This animistic ritual is found across tribes in Papua New Guinea, Africa and Eastern Asia and consists of cutting one’s skin in specific patterns. Through the experience of both pain and body-altering wounds resulting from the ritual, one achieves “purification”.
Rituals of purification and AI technology share a key role in the politics surrounding the human body. Rituals of purification are among the most ancient means of social categorization. In both animistic tribes and religious societies, participation to particular rituals, often via payment of goods or money, grants access to social positions.
In a similar and dangerous way, participation to AI algorithm analysis, via private and browsing data, grants and regulates access to medical assistance, social welfare and criminal systems. Amygdala thus reanimates a key symbol of human history through the glare of today’s technocratic society.
Amygdala is driven by adaptive neural networks. Essentially, these are iterative mathematical equations, computed by the robot in real time. The specific kinds of neural networks behind Amygdala imitate the sensorimotor system of animals. This means that the robot’s movement are not pre-programmed, but emerge spontaneously from the activity of the neural networks.
Because the neural networks receive sensory information from the robot’s body in real time, the robot can adapt to any physical change or constraint in its environment. As a result, Amygdala is capable of a markedly organic, interactive and changing behaviour recalling animal’s movements.
Readings
Cianciotta, A.
Amygdala, AI-led body politics
Neural Magazine
Bucknell, A.
Do Androids Dream of Contemporary Art?
Elephant Art Magazine
Donnarumma, M.
Amygdala
What if it won’t stop here?, eds. Daniel Pies and Jan Verwoert. Berlin: Archive Books, 2018
Awards
2018, German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and Wissenschaft im Dialog (DE)
Artist of the Science Year 2018
Exhibitions
- Field Experiments: Exhibition Laboratory for Science, Art, and Society
Curated by Stefanie Greimel and Johanna Wallenborn, Berlin, DE, 2018 - Robot Love
Curated by Ine Gevers, Eindhoven, NL, 2018 - Ars Electronica Festival
Curated by Christl Baur, Gerfried Stocker, Linz, AT, 2018 - SHARE Festival
Curated by Jasmina Tešanović, Bruce Sterling, Turin, IT, 2018 - Ars Electronica Future Innovators Summit
Curated by Ars Electronica, Tokyo, JP, 2018 - The Restlessness of Hybridity, Solo exhibition, Baltan Laboratories
Curated by Olga Mink, Eindhoven, NL, 2018 - Enjoy Complexity, Schauspiel Dortmund
Curated by Alexander Kerlin, Dortmund, DE, 2018 - Retune Digital Arts Lab
Curated by Jasmin Grimm and Julian Adenauer, Bitkom Conference, Berlin, DE, 2017 - Close, Never Closer
Curated by Jan Verwoert, Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin, DE, 2017 - Salon fuer Aesthetische Experimente #2
Preview, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, DE, 2017
Credits
An artwork by Marco Donnarumma in collaboration with Neurorobotics Research Laboratory and Ana Rajcevic Studio.
Marco Donnarumma – Concept, research, artistic direction and programming
Prof. Alberto de Campo – Additional programming and research
Ana Rajcevic – Robotics’ visual design
Christian Schmidts – 3D modeling and printing
Rosalie Laurin – Exhibit design research
Margherita Pevere, William Veder, Marco Donnarumma – Photography
Retune Festival – Co-production
Berlin University of the Arts, Graduiertenschule – Funding
Einstein Stiftung – Funding
Berlin Center for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences – In kind support
Baltan Laboratories – In kind support / Dissemination