Assembly Lines is a performative installation featuring a custom multi-robotic system driven by meditation and biofeedback.

The machine system is a technological configuration beyond automation, exploring instinctive rhythms of painting through human and machine co-creation. It intertwines the gestural authorship of biological and mechanical subjects in the space. 

The echo of artist and robotic mark-making in collaboration are transposed through an octophonic sound system. Placed across the room, the sound immerses the audience in a multi-sensorial environment, creating a composition of neural and synaptically linked gestures. 

Collaborators: 

Sougwen Chung
Drawing Operations Unit: Gen 5. 
EEG, Contact Microphones, Multi-robotic system, paint

What new relational perspectives can emerge when human and machine subjects create on the same plane?

Wave Drawings
Assembly Lines Studies

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Untitled Nº 1 Biofeedback Paintings, Assembly Lines Series 2021 Acrylic on canvas 44 × 34 in Process: EEG biofeedback, contact microphones, and custom multi-robotic system (D.O.U.G._5)

The following are preparatory studies created during the research and development of Assembly Lines.

"The concept of assemblage— an open- ended entanglement of ways of being— is more useful. In an assemblage, varied trajectories gain a hold on each other, but indeterminacy matters. To learn about an assemblage, one unravels its knots."

- Anna Tsing

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Untitled Nº 2 Biofeedback Paintings, Assembly Lines Series 2021 Acrylic on canvas 44 × 34 in Process: EEG biofeedback, contact microphones, and custom multi-robotic system (D.O.U.G._5)

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Untitled Nº 3 Biofeedback Paintings, Assembly Lines Series 2021 Acrylic on canvas 44 × 34 in Process: EEG biofeedback, contact microphones, and custom multi-robotic system (D.O.U.G._5)

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Untitled Nº 4 Biofeedback Paintings, Assembly Lines Series 2021 Acrylic on canvas 44 × 34 in Process: EEG biofeedback, contact microphones, and custom multi-robotic system (D.O.U.G._5)

Performance

Beginning with a live meditation that forms the basis for a 24 minute performance, Assembly Lines showcases an improvisational creativity between human and machine across three canvases. During the performance, D.O.U.G._5 responds to my biofeedback through the use of an E.E.G headset while engaging in centering rituals like drawing and meditating  – intertwining the gestural authorship of biological and mechanical subjects in space.

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Exhibition

The synchronicity of movement results in visual artefacts and an immersive sonic environment. Real-time sonification and spatialisation of the robotic gestures are recorded through the use of contact microphones within the space. My movements and the robotic lines reverberate as they make contact on the surface of the performance platform – as brushstroke meets canvas.  The collaboration is transposed through an octophonic sound system. Placed across the room, the sound immerses the audience in a multi-sensorial environment, creating a composition of neural and synaptically linked gestures.

Research

“…see the mind as an emergent property, and the very important and interesting consequence of this emergent property is our own sense of self. My sense of self exists because it gives me an interface with the world. I’m “Me” for interactions, but my “I” doesn’t substantially exist, in the sense that it can’t be localized anywhere.”

- Francisco Varela

To draw parallels to computational development, the low level of the human system is accessed in D.O.U.G._5, the level of the signal versus the processor, the artistic intention of mark-making. This shifts the role of the human as agent to conduit – the human mind itself as a conduit for artistic co creation.

SPECULATING AURA

D.O.U.G._5 challenges the notion of the drawn line as an intentional, artistic gesture and posits a conceptualization of drawing as inextricably linked electrical signals in the brain, the biology of the cognizing human subject further moving away from the human as a control subject in the human / machine configuration.

SPATIAL SONIFICATION

An expansive and evolving relation between human and machine that gesturalizes and sonifies the electrical signals generated by the human and robotic body. 

DRAWING WITH D.O.U.G.

Assembly Lines is a continuation of a long-term project exploring human & robotic collaboration. 

EXPLORE PREVIOUS GENERATIONS

Generation 1: Mimicry
Generation 2: Memory
Generation 3: Collectivity
Generation 4: Spectrality

READING LIST

Han, Byung-Chul, et al. The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present. Polity Press, 2020.

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Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. The Primacy of Movement: ‹strong›expanded Second Edition‹. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011.

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Lourenço, Inês, et al. “Teaching Robots to Perceive Time -- a Reinforcement Learning Approach (Extended Version).” ArXiv.org, 20 Dec. 2019, https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.10113.

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Wiener, Norbert. The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Afterword by Walter A. Rosenblith. Avon Books, 1973.

SELECTED PRESS

Tara. “In Search of the Present, a Group Show at the Crossroads of Art and Science, Will Open Emma's Autumn Programme.” Helsinki Times, 25 Aug. 2022, https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/culture/22092-in-search-of-the-present-a-group-show-at-the-crossroads-of-art-and-science-will-open-emma-s-autumn-programme.html

“Sensory Mixes of the Future.” Inner Magazines, 2 Nov. 2022, https://www.inner-magazines.com/culture/sensory-mixes-of-the-future/. 

EXHIBITION CREDITS

Concept: Sougwen Chung
Robotic Development: Sougwen Chung
Technical Direction: Sougwen Chung
Production: Tessa Nijdam
Sound Composition: Aquarian
Spatial Sound Design: Neda Sanai

FILM CREDITS

Film Direction: Sougwen Chung
Director of Photography: Peter Butterworth
Storyboard: Pierce Eldridge, Tessa Nijdam
Film Editing: Peter Butterworth Film
Production: Tessa Nijdam
Sound Composition: Aquarian 

EMMA CREDITS

Curation: Ingrid Orman, Arja Miller
Project Management: Milja Liimatainen
Construction of Platform, AV-rentals, Backline, and Technical Consultancy: Lasse Lindfors, Olli Lukkari, Sami Supply.

Assembly Lines was produced as a collaboration between SCILICET & Espoo Museum of Modern Art, supported by the Saastamoinen Foundation.