It’s something you might witness when you’re walking along a city street at night: a bright, flickering light and distinct shadows of human figures caused by welding work on tram rails. Gabriel Lester, who often incorporates film elements in his work, has been fascinated by this dramatic, film-like effect for a while now and it’s this exact instance that served as inspiration for his installation Nobody.
He placed a robot arm in a greenhouse and programmed it to perform a continuous, graceful dance with defined movements. By positioning a bright light behind it, an enlarged shadow play is created that can be watched on the ‘bow’ of NEMO Science Museum – a modern figurehead, as it were.
The title given to the installation by Lester, Nobody, says a lot about its meaning. It is the English translation of the Latin word ‘nemo’ – not exactly a coincidence that this is also the name of the science museum. With this work, Lester asks the question of whether man is still ‘someone’ of significance in a world that is increasingly controlled (or dominated) by technology. We design, build and program all kinds of complex machines and robots, so you could say that we provide the service. But those same robots can perform many tasks more precisely and faster than we can, making us gradually useless or unnecessary. We have a supporting role in a world that revolves around innovation, efficiency and increasing production. So, the question is, who actually pulls the strings these days?
At the same time, Nobody also attempts to show us the beauty and poetry that exists in the modern technology surrounding us. The robot arms resemble something human in their movements, something touching, as if their maker has given them something of himself
SUPPORTED BY: NEMO Science Museum | Rolan Robotics
