Can pigs fly? The answer is no, but in a new exhibition for the Tate Museum in London, design and technology laboratory Sitara Systems shows that “aerobes” do.
Sitara was selected as the creative technology company for Tate Modern’s upcoming Hyundai commission exhibition by New York based conceptual artist Anicka Yi. The Hyundai Commission is Tate’s most prestigious and widely attracting art event, drawing millions of visitors to the museum.
Officially titled Anicka Yi: In love With the World, the project explores links between art and science. The exhibit itself consists of a living ecosystem of the “aerobes,” which are autonomous flying machines whose physical design was created by German company Airstage. The aerobes, inhabiting the museum’s famed Turbine Hall, are fully self-directed and interact with visitors. Sitara designed the artificial intelligence that runs each machine’s virtual ‘mind,’ which helps them navigate the hall and make decisions about how to interact with visitors.
“The aerobes are controlled by an Artificial Life Simulation system that provides them with context about their environment, their inner motivations, and their individual traits. Together these factors give rise to self-directed choices that the aerobes make within an ever-changing ecosystem,” says Nathan Lachenmyer, co-founder of Sitara Systems. “The aerobes’ possess a unique set of senses; they use high-frequency radio waves to communicate with each other and to map out the space, and they use thermal imaging to see visitors. Their perception of the world is truly different from our own.”
The installation asks us to reconsider our relationships with our own minds and bodies, as well as how we encounter other beings, including those we view as ‘artificial’. Artist Anicka Yi hopes that by expanding our ideas of intelligence, kinship, and even ‘life’ itself, we might access new forms of compassion, empathy, and universal experience.
The exhibition opens October 12, 2021 and continues until January 16, 2022. Entry is free with a ticket.
