For me, performance art is the art form in which artists can challenge and stretch preconceived boundaries of art the furthest – partly because the artist comes into direct contact with its audience and partly because it doesn’t have the academic tradition which other art forms have, therefore freeing itself from rules and conventions. (Nehrian Khalifa)
NEUROTIC takes place over three nights in July from the 3rd-5th. It is created by artist Fiddian Warman and is three nights of live punk headlined by Fiddian’s band Neurotic and the PVCs (Punk Voice Choir), The performance is supported by up and coming punk bands from across the UK, playing to an audience of humans and unique punk-loving robots. In the auditorium three 2-metre tall robots, padded and dressed in leather, will be anchored to various parts of the ICA theatre floor, each with the ability to pogo up to an imposing height of 2-3 metre. Controlling these robots is a Neural Network modelled on the cells of the human brain.
Interview between Nehrain Khalifa and Peter McOwan
How did the project NEUROTIC come about? And how did you meet Fiddian Warman?
I met him through our earlier work on sodarace.net We have been working together since around 2000.
How long has this project been in the making?
It’s been a thought buzzing in Fiddian's head for a few years now, and we
had been looking for ways to make it a reality.
In testing out these robots and how they would react to certain stimuli,
is there some characteristic of Punk music by which you thought the robots
could respond to better than any other type of music or sound?
They learn patterns in the sound by listening to punk/non punk music.
Exactly what these patterns are depends on their past musical experiences.
Different robots will have discovered the different patterns that they use.
Are you expecting the robots to respond to the presence of other people as
well as to the music?
The robots are deliberately simple, and will only respond to the music.
But we hope the people will respond to the robots.
How will the robots be operated?
They have a ‘computer’ nervous system, a neural network that drives
their pneumatic, air powered muscles. They will be under their own control.
Can the robots only pogo? If they were placed in a different environment,
would their reaction be different?
They have very simple up and down movements, hence they can only pogo.
If you played non punk music to them, and contain some of the sound patterns
they had learnt, they would pogo again. Yup, pogo-ing is what they do.
What does this new technology mean in the context of medical science?
It’s more about making people think, at this stage. Part of the event is
to get people thinking about their own brains, how their own experiences and tastes
develop in the neurons of their brains, and also to raise awareness that mathematical
understanding of how our brains work. This computational neuroscience
can help us better understand ourselves, as well as helping to build machines
that have other ‘human’ abilities.
www.ica.org.uk
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