Frankfurter Kunstverein

Takayuki Todo

Empathic Systems

13 Jun - 08 Sep 2019

Takayuki Todo, “SEER", 2018, ©the artist, Courtesy: the artist
Opening: Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 7pm

The Frankfurter Kunstverein has invited Yves Netzhammer, Theo Jansen, and Takayuki Todo to present a selection of their works in solo shows, under the shared thematic title “Empathic Systems.“ The works of the three artists use varying aesthetics and result from completely different artistic processes. Nonetheless, all the works share a corporeal appearance despite being synthetically made, and are capable of touching the viewer solely through the form of their physical activity in space, beyond any linguistic conceptualization.

For years, Takayuki Todo has been working on anthropomorphic figures that are made of entirely synthetic materials, but come alive through their gaze. The artist explores how people establish an emotional relationship with humanoid robots. “SEER” is the “simulative emotional expression robot” that interacts with the viewer through gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact only. The artistic work was created to examine the meaning and power of the gaze and facial expression in the context of human-machine research.

Curator: Franziska Nori