Alexitimia, Paula Gaetano (Argentina)
http://www.paulagaetano.com.ar/

The Oscar Signorini Prize
Submission 2008 - XXV Prize edition

1. General Information

- Artist’s name: Paula Gaetano Adi
- Title of the artwork entrant: Alexitimia
- Year: 2006
- Technical description: Autonomous Robotic Agent
- Link to the online page about the artwork: http://www.paulagaetano.com.ar/

Concept

Alexitimia (from the Greek):
a= prefix meaning lack; lexis = word; thymos = feelings or emotions

“Alexitimia” is the manifestation of a deficit in emotional cognition. The terminology is a clinical construct that describes the behavior of someone who is mostly unaware of his feelings, or does not know what they signify, and hence, is not able to talk about their emotions or their emotional preferences. Alexithymics beings are incapable of expressing mental conflicts verbally and therefore they express them through the body and its somatic functionality. In this way, instead of findings a means of symbolic expression mediated by words, the agent releases the emotions translated in some kind of “organ language”.

For this reason, Alexitimia is also the name of this “autonomous robotic agent” whose behavior is analogous to the process of sweating of the human skin. This alexithymic agent has a very unusual and ambiguous behavior for a robot and, as a result, does not seem to be a powerful machine with equally powerful software housed in a mobile body able to act rationally on its perception of the world around it. On the contrary, Alexitimia is a robot constructed definitely without a clear function, a clear utility and consequently, clears motivations or goals to achieve. This autonomous robot was made to propose an ironic position different from the view of an agent as a “competent system of autonomy and determination”.

Created with an organic appearance made with soft and flexible materials, this "alexithymic robot" was designed as an irregular semi-sphere that remains immobile in the exhibition's room. This robot cannot move around the space, cannot see, cannot emit sounds and also cannot detect voices; however, it can interact with the spectators through its somatic self (his body).

With the intention of showing a holistic approach to the hardware/software dichotomy that seems to be the echo of the previous and more primitive Cartesian duality of mind/body, this robot, without any anthropomorphic (or robotic) aspect, interacts and communicates with the environment only by a tactile way of perception. Therefore, using it's “artificial skin" as an interface, the corporeal scheme of this robot begins to sweat when somebody (a spectator) touches it.

In Alexitimia, the robot's "body" occupies a hegemonic place and in contrast to an “Artificial Intelligence”, this work conceptually proposes the existence of an “Artificial Corporeality” that functions fundamentally as the interface of the piece, as its materiality and its form. At the same time, the creation of this second artificiality is also an attempt to explore a ‘body language' in robotic agents that can challenge those computational paradigms and AI research programs that seem to find their main difficulty of representation in the fact that machines do not have a body with appropriate movements, abilities and vulnerability.

2. Artist Bio (short version)


Paula Gaetano Adi (1981) is an artist and researcher working in sculptures, performances, interactive installations and robotic agents.

Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at MejanLabs (Stockholm), ARCO 07- Madrid Contemporary Art Fair, National Art Museum of China(Beijing), BrandenburgerTor Foundation (Berlin), FILE Festival (Sao Paulo), BIOS4 (Sevilla), BrandenburgerTor Foundation (Berlin), Museum of Modern Art Buenos Aires, Espacio Fundación Telefónica (Buenos Aires), among others.

Her awards include, the First Prize in the international competition on art and artificial life VIDA 9.0 - Fundación Telefónica; the First Prize ‘LIMBØ’- Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires. Grants and fellowships from the Argentinean government, San Juan Bank Foundation, Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Ohio State University and Blas Pascal University.

Gaetano Adi received a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Blas Pascal University, and a postgraduate degree in New Media Arts from the same university. Currently, she lives in Ohio-U.S where she pursues a Master in Fine Arts - Art & Technology program- at The Ohio State University.

From 2006 to 2008 she was a faculty member at the Electronics Arts program, Tres de Febrero National University in Buenos Aires and the program on Mixed Media Art at the National University of Lanús, Buenos Aires. During 2006 she was a visiting scholar for a research residence at the REMAP – Center for Research on Engineering, Media and Performance - University of California, Los Ángeles (UCLA).

Download a complete resumé at: http://www.paulagaetano.com.ar/cv_paula_gaetano_adi.pdf

3. Additional Information

For more information about “Alexitimia”, the autonomous robotic agent:

I) - Please, find a video documentation, at: http://www.paulagaetano.com.ar/video_alexitimia.htm

II) - Download the digital version of a published paper, at: http://www.paulagaetano.com.ar/alexitimia.pdf
- Or find it at the journal “a.minima”. Edition 23, January 2008. Barcelona, Spain.