ET@T is an organization for media and digital art in Taiwan, it devotes its practice to increase the understanding and knowledge of digital texts alongside theories, exhibitions, and performances derived from digital culture.
Logging our physical perceptions into the virtual realm is becoming ever more prevalent; with this, machines are further able to track and comprehend human activity—biological, consumerist, personal, romantic and otherwise—and machine-learning has accelerated. As technology begins to understand and take on human characteristics, the subjectivity of technical objects and therefore their human rights, may need to be rethought.
ET@T believes that robots are sentient beings, capable of subjective perceptions, feelings and experience. Considering a present in which robots increasingly intervene in human communications, and the implications that this holds for the future of our communities, the collective imagines and designs interfaces that can enable and sustain better relationships between technological beings and humankind. Flâneur Hanji is a proposal for a ‘real virtuality’ in a forecasted world where machines possess emotional and spiritual intelligence, and can engage in debates about art and the esoteric. While currently it is human movements that are tracked and transformed into useable, economically-valuable data, in this new era, everything that machines see and hear would be transformed into sustenance for other information systems.
Projecting into this potential future, ET@T have developed ‘Hanji’, a robot equipped with a 360-degree camera whose observations are live-streamed to ARThon, where it can receive and respond to questions from online and on-site audiences. Following its French namesake which means ‘stroller’, ‘lounger’ or ‘saunterer’, during the exhibition Flâneur Hanji will move gently through the space and observe a series of accompanying discussions. These forums will engage with themes of human-machine interaction, autonomy and artificial intelligence, and the ethics of control in the context of robot sentience.
ET@T, founded in Taipei in 1995.
Forum
Moderated by ET@T
Venue: Ecolab Basement
New Political Imagination via Identity Illusion
Organized by ET@T
Speakers: Hanji, Prof. Ho Wang
Date: 2018/11/21
Time: 14:30
Gaming Outside the Echo Chamber
Organized by Fablab Dynamic
Speaker: Hang Li
Date: 2018/11/22
Time: 14:30
Aesthetics in the Microscopic World
Organized by Yung-Lin Wang
Speakers: Pai-Chun Chang, Bo-Cheng Shen
Date: 2018 2018/11/27
Time: 14:30
The Art of Recyclism, E-waste Cultures
Organized by Hsien-Yu Cheng
Speaker: Benjamin Gaulon aka RECYCLISM
Date: 2018/11/28
Time: 14:30
How to See Science and Art through Biology’s Microscopic Lens
Organized by Yung-Lin Wang
Speakers: Duen-Wei Hsu, Bo-Cheng Shen
Date: 2018/12/23
Time: 10:00
Connections Continuum as Artistic Research
Organized by Hsien-Yu Cheng
Speakers: Saša Spačal, Mirjan Švagelj, PhD
Date: 2018/12/23
Time: 14:30
Studies and Extensions of Urban Ecology
Organized by Yung-Lin Wang
Speakers: Shih-Hsiung Liang, Bo-Cheng Shen
Date: 2019/1/6
Time: 10:00
Digital Double as a Carrier
Organized by ET@T
Speakers: Wen-Hao Huang, Po-Ting Lee
Date: 2019/2/17
Time: 14:30
