Curatorial Statement | Artist's Résumé

Our knowledge of robots comes largely from the realm of science fiction. Robots give a friendly face to highly scientific technological progress, anthropomorphised machines that open up an indecipherable world to us. In movies like Star Wars, robots are presented as friendly mascots, cute, clever, if just a little bit naive. Sometimes, such as in the 1973 movie Demon Seed (where a robot transforms from a friendly assistant into a tyrant), robots represent the possible threat of new technology, where scientific innovations make human beings redundant.

Douglas Bagnall explores this territory in a highly complex computer project. With A Film-making Robot, he has created just that - a robot that can edit short films. In fact, what Bagnall has really made is a computer software programme, structured to select from a range of video footage, with an in-built ability to make aesthetic decisions. Bagnall has set the programme to 'get bored' and endlessly shift its decision-making; the robot may choose footage based purely on the colour blue, for example, or may focus on people and movement.

Of course, being a computer programme, Bagnall's robot doesn't have legs, and can't therefore move around the city gathering raw material. Instead, Bagnall has enlisted the aid of local transport company Stagecoach, who will host small cameras on the front of their buses. The camera records as the bus travels around the suburbs of Wellington and when the bus returns into the city, the footage is automatically uploaded to the robot through the aid of local telecommunications company City Link's wireless broadband (which allows computers to be online in the inner city without a power connection).

Inside the gallery space, there are two projections: one is what the artist has described as the robot's 'dreamings' (the robot's thought processes as it sifts through material); the other screens the robot's finished films. Bagnall says provocatively 'it makes sense to make a robot that performs the role of the artist, freeing the artist to dwell on something else'. Could robots replace artists? Is creativity something we can simply programme into existence?

Emma Bugden

The artist would like to thank Stagecoach New Zealand and City Link for their support of his work in Telecom Prospect 2004.