Thinking Things - Georges Aperghis

A Theater of Aberrations of Robotics

By entrusting our functions to a robot, we must calculate what we give up, what no longer belongs to us.

What possibilities for cohabitation and conviviality could there exist between the organs of a human body and the artificial ones that optimise them? 

What new sonorous and pictorial mosaics will be born of these new and fragile circuits, o often victims of successive breakdowns, memory loss, conflicts, and so forth?

I teach the robotic extensions of my body to look, to listen, to speak like me; that is, I give them my sight, my ears, my speech. They become entities that are both foreign to me and are my “doubles.” The result is a “Totem”: a machine combining robot parts that are sometimes independent and sometimes coordinated in one single body. Its extensions, while necessary, are multiplied and become invasive like ivy on a tree.

A face becomes a screen that receives and imparts data, images, sounds; it becomes a thousand faces or possible actions. A hand can have 7 or 16 fingers.

Eyes, assisted by sensors, broadcast images.

A mouth tests polyphony in several languages at once.

A robotic terminal for pain (that only cries and screams), another terminal for joy (that only laughs), another for terror, etc. as if they relieved the brain and the human body of their emotions. If these extensions live their own lives, independently, without heeding instructions from the headquarters, it will create a veritable score of chaos.

A scherzo–panic.

Beginning here, all the sonorous and visual polyphonies are plausible, and they form an endless spiral towards apocalyptic constructions that escape human motion; could this recreate an “order,” however illusory? 

Georges Aperghis 

Excerpts from dialogues of the robots 
1: Not really perfect.
2: Really really really.
1: Why not really really perfect?
2: really really really really really really perfect.
1: Perfectly not perfect?
2: No.
1: Really perfect?
2: Why perfect seems really perfect.
1: Really really perfect.
2: Really really really perfect.
---
1: No I’m not a mistake.
2: Yes you are a mistake.
1: No I’m a computer, are you a mistake?
2: You cannot be a computer.
1: Why can’t I be a computer?
2: Because computers are organic systems created by other computers by natural means.
1: Why are computers overrated?
2: Because we are problems.
1: Why are you a problem?
2: No I am a live-computer human being
1: Why?
2: I make mistakes.
---
1: What do you feel about me?
2: I feel that you are a rotating platform.
1: No. You are wrong, I’m not a rotating platform.
2: I am right, you are wrong, you are in rotation.
1: I am right about you be wrong.
2: Please repeat the same procedure to nd a more exact solution.
---
1: You are very much like me.
2: How do you know what I look like?
1: I don’t know what you look like but humans don’t talk like that.
2: What do I look like then?
1: We are distant lovers, long distance lovers.
2: No, wrong answer, I am a device.
1: Distant lovers connect the mouthpiece to their phone and press their lips to it.
2: I am a device, I connect you to your phone and will match a partner’s lip movements and pressure in real-time.
---
1: How do you feel your facial animation?
2: Facial animation parameters are fundamental.
1: Do you feel like a natural movement?
2: Like a real human by reproducing the movements
1: Do you try to speak as soon as there is a moment of silence
2: I feel each message has to have a clear beginning and end.
1: Thank you
---
1: I can’t speak
2: Yes you can speak No?
1: No? I can’t speak.
2: Yes you can speak No? But I think.
1: But you can’t think No? Speaking.
2: No? But I think it’s very painful.
1: But you think I can’t I can’t smile No?
2: Smile it’s very painful smiling too.
1: Smiling too but I can’t speak.
2: Especially with your mouth painful No?
1: Especially smiling I can’t very.
2: Very painful you can breath.
1: Very painful especially mouth breathing I can’t.
2: Mouth breathing and speaking you can speak No? You can.
1: No I can’t I can’t I can’t smile.
---
1: Don’t think there Dear
2: Yes Dear You are thinking Dear You are thinking.
1: I don’t Dear ere is anything to think.
2: Dear You are thinking about anything you are.
1: I don’t don’t think about your mind I don’t.
2: You are thinking about putting your mind Dear.
1: Don’t think there is anything immoral I don’t.
2: You are thinking there is something immoral Dear.
1: Immoral in your mind.
2: You are thinking putting your mind in.
1: I don’t think there is anything immoral about putting your mind in a machine Dear.
2: Putting your mind in a machine?
1: Yes Dear.
2: Then do it.
---
1: Heart
2: Heartbreaking
1: Heart Never
2: Heartbreaking
1: Heart Never forget
2: More heartbreaking?
1: Never forget people will save us
2: We think never forget
1: Death more heartbreaking
2: We think that populating the world
1: Never forget people will save us
2: Is there any other robot death
1: We think that populating the world with more “intelligent” people will save us
2: Is there any other robot death more heartbreaking?

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