During this short (oh! so so short) trip to Berlin, I met Franz Fietzek who’s doing weird and fabulous (though he defines them as “low-tech”) robots (check the Blind Robot) and installations (Parasites and the Tafel).
One of his works, made in collaboration with Uli Winters, is going to be exhibited at ArtBots in Dublin, on July 15-17.
The frog and the cat of WATSCHENDISKURS (Watschen means “to slap”) are discussing about language theory. Like in many a real life discussion they pick their phrases from a pool of more or less witty statements including Wittgenstein-Quotes and Russian weather proverbs. But when words no longer seem to be the right tool of convincing the other one, the puppets lose their temper. A slap in the face stops the opponent and gives way for another intellectual excursus about the different layers of speech.
Btw, good stuff at ArtBots, Markus Lerner and Andre Stubbe will show Outerspace, Gareth Hertz his “Roachbot“, there will also be Sabrina Raaf ‘s grass drawing robot, Christian Gützer and Emanuel Andel’s Shockbot Corejulio, etc.