| Head Links Ken Feingold began his work/infautation with roboticized, interactive "talking heads" in the early 90s, often combining them with physical and virtual environments. "Head" is his earliest-advanced concoction. Lifelike with its mechanically powered facial movements and laytex skin, this "synthetic" human head rests atop the table in the gallery space. Somewhat dazed, blinking, "head" appears to be gazing off in the distance as the viewer approaches. From time to time, "head" may utter something, catching the viewer off guard, initiating a strange conversation between the two. "Head's" true innovative virtue is its ability to understand spoken English through his "Eliza-like" wired artificial brain. "Head" takes in pieces of what the viewer says, and his response is a departure from what he is able to comprehend. "Head" is programmed to often rhyme, alliterate, recite quotes, examine himself, and predict. The result is that the viewer feels as though he is conversing with someone with a personality disorder. Besides the just plain "creepy and eerie" factor, I am intrigued with Feingold's motorized doll/manaquin installations (of which "head" is one among many) because they call the viewer to question his own placement and "alive-ness" in space. The border between animate and inanimate, synthetic and real, is suspended by the dialoguing and facial-movement capabilities of the "heads." He also seems to bring the surrealist fascination with the dislocated, dismembered body back to life, re-appropriating the haunting feelings of loss and dislocation into our time, endowing the head/doll/manequin with new technologies that further the surrealist impulse. Submitted
by |
|
