To a degree, many of both Susy Oliveira and Brandon Vickerd’s sculptures concern man-made representations of nature and the natural. This common theme is consistent with a number of the texts discussed in ENGL 793: Necromedia, and in particular, Rodney Brooks’s Flesh and Machines.
Concave Head (Have Everything and Die)
Like her installation in the upper pavilion of City Hall during the CAFK+A biennial, Have Everything And Die, many of Oliveira’s sculptures take on the form of conspicuously polygonal representations of natural objects. Detailed with actual photographs of the natural object depicted, the art invokes the recognition of imperfect representation. In their reminiscently digital forms, aspects of the sculptures appear real, but on the whole, are obviously not. Be it the bouquet Nothing more, nothing less, the natural scene Bird on a log, or The Girl and the Bear, Oliveira’s art seems to invoke our cultural obsession with digital representations of nature, and in their imperfect and jagged rendering, illustrate perhaps the difficulty, if not impossibility, of the task.
In some regard, this theme is shared by much of the work of Brandon Vickerd. Champions of Entropy, composed of two machines “whose sole purpose is to replicate the organic movements of two male deer locked in constant combat” (Vickerd), and Phillip’s Park Tree, a corten steel mimesis of a sapling, are two examples particularly illustrative of this overlap in theme. Satellite, different in the regard that it doesn’t depict mechanized or digitized nature, nevertheless calls into question the infallibility of technology in its “crashed” state.
In Flesh and Machines, Rodney Brooks considers whether humans are more than machine: “We humans are being challenged by machines. Are we more than machine, or can all of our mental abilities, perceptions, intuition, emotions and even spirituality be emulated, equalled, or even surpassed, by machines?“ (Brooks). This question of replication of nature, and in turn precisely that which makes us human is certainly reflected in the work of both Oliveira and Vickerd. In her digitized representations of natural objects, closing in (but not yet there) on the correct shape and appearance of nature, Oliveira seems to remind us of the capabilities of technology in representing our physical realm. This consideration is likewise evident in Vickerd’s constructions, mimetic representations and mechanized recreations of the rut between two bucks, or an emerging sprout. But are we to interpret either artist’s work as indicative of their acceptance of our eventual and unavoidable perfect replication? My interpretation is no. Vickerd seems to stress repeatedly the failings of technology and technological reproductions in his work, life saliently absent in some regard from each sculptures. Champions of Entropy makes no attempt to reproduce any part of the stag beyond the physical characteristics of the rut, Phillip’s Park Tree seems void of life altogether, and Satellite certainly challenges our assumption of the supremacy of technology. Oliveira’s work meanwhile obviously suggests the imperfection of digital reproduction in the rough polygonal representations. Have Everything and Die in particular plays with our perception to drive the point home. Though seemingly convex from the front, its actual concavity becomes apparent as the viewer begins to circle the monolithic head, reminding them of the mind’s capacity to be deceived, while at the same time stressing the imperfection of the representation. Brooks certainly wouldn’t agree with the assessment of the two artists, however. His critique of these views would probably resemble his evaluation of Weizenbaum and Lanier’s statements concerning the specialness of mankind:
“An intelligent machine will call into question one of humankind’s last bastions of specialness, and so they deny, without rational argument, that such a machine could exist. It is intellectually too scary” (Brooks).
Rather than point to the failings in capturing and replicating nature and the natural, Brooks would likely stress the fact that we are collectively closing in.
Source: Brooks, Rodney A. Flesh and Machines: how robots will change us. New York: Pantheon, 2002.
