Patrick Tresset and the human essence through robotics

In his work, Tresset analyzes traits and aspects of the human experience, reflecting on recurring ideas such as embodiment, the passage of time, childhood, conformity, obsessiveness, nervousness, the need for storytelling, and marking. His works have been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions at prestigious venues, including the Centre Pompidou (Paris), Fondazione Prada (Milan), Tate Modern (London), MMCA (Seoul), Grand Palais (Paris), BOZAR (Brussels), TAM (Beijing), Mcam (Shanghai), and Mori Art Museum (Tokyo).

Human Study # 1 3RNP, Machine Studies exhibition, London, 2018
photo: Tommo for Merge festival

I was lucky and pleased to see HUMAN STUDY #1, 5RNP at the Maker Fair in Rome in 2019. Can you tell me about this work?

Human Study #1 is a performative installation. To summarise what happens, it is set in a scene reminiscent of a life drawing class. A person takes the sitter’s role to be sketched by several robots. When the subject arrives by appointment, they are seated in a chair. An assistant places sheets of paper onto the robots’ desks and wakes each one up, twisting its arm or knocking three times.

The robots stylised minimal actors. All look alike and are only capable of drawing. Their bodies are old-school desks on which the drawing paper is placed. Their left arm bolted on the table holds a black Bic biro, and to serve as the eye is a camera mounted on motors. The drawing sessions last up to thirty minutes. During this time, the sitter sees only the robots, alternating between observing them and drawing, sometimes pausing. The sounds produced by each robot’s motors create an improvised soundtrack.

The model is in an ambivalent position, at the mercy of the robots’ scrutiny, and as an object of artistic attention. The robots take what is perceived as an artistic role. Although immobile, the model is active in keeping the pose; for the audience, the sitter is an integral part of the installation but not the main protagonist. Performances after performances, the drawings progressively cover the gallery’s walls.

Each time I set the installation up myself, I spend a few hours retuning each system until I find the drawings interesting; I evaluate them as if they were my own. Depending on the context, some of the drawings can be acquired; otherwise, if not, they enter an artwork titled collection that already includes more than 50,000 drawings of humans who have taken part in human study #1. They are traces of the performances. Some are also in museum collections.

I developed the first robot during my doctoral studies at Goldsmiths College in London in a research project I co-directed with Prof Fol Leymarie investigating the drawing practice, what a drawing is, and how it is possible to develop a computational system capable of drawing. I got around to using robots because I realised that a drawing that works on the perceptual system, like a human-made one, had to be made over time with a tool in movement, leaving traces. A drawing is a memory of the artist’s actions and intentions. The embodiment is essential; the robot’s physical characteristics strongly influence the drawing. They are “true” to the robots; the style is not forced. The embodied agents react to what they see. They sketch.

Although I write all the code and build the robots, it is important to stress that, artistically, how they work or the technological implementation is irrelevant; they are not demos. They are actors in performances, and I have no interest in techno-realism.

Human Study #1 5RNP, Robot Essay exhibition, MMCA, Seoul, 2015
photo: Patrick Tresset

In Human Study #4, visitors were invited to observe a classroom of 20 robot pupils receiving lessons. Each robot displayed human traits that influenced their behavior such as shyness, distraction. For this work you were inspired by your school days in France, trying to humanize robots with different character traits as if they were real pupils and classmates. So can it be said that your work is more about human nature than technology, considering your interest in psychology?

Indeed my work is not at all about computational technology. I add the term computational because technology includes things such as pencils, brushes, and even writing or language can be considered “technologies”. My installations, paintings, animations and the robots depict certain aspects of humanness and human experience.

Human Study #4 is a play in four acts about learning to conform and passing the time. It is also about behavioural standardisation. It is not very optimistic, as, at some point, the pupils revolt, but they all do it similarly and then get back to conforming shortly after. In this installation, the robots have no autonomy; they are puppets, and it is all scripted. Some of my influences include Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton

Jon McCormack commenting on the piece (Creative AI Podcast, S2, Ep3: Patrick Tresset
SensiLab, Università di Monash).

”I think it’s fantastic. One thing I love about it is its humour—it’s humorous yet very serious at the same time, maintaining a beautiful balance between being slightly comical but also very poignant, which is extremely hard to do. It’s like watching an alien classroom or a classroom filled with machines learning, raising many interesting questions.”

La Classe is the fourth of the six instalments of my Human Study series. As with the other installations, drawing is an essential component. Here mark-making is reduced to a minimal aesthetic, playing with the strong symbolic and visual contrast between the tally mark and the gestural scribble.

Human Study #1,Trace exhibition, New Media Gallery, New Westminster, 2018
photo: New Media Gallery

How would you describe your experience working with artificial intelligence and, in particular, what prompted you to use it in artistic creation?

I started programming when I was nine years old, and at that time, the computer I had could only be programmed in assembly code, which means that the software was not written in words, but with simple low level instructions represented by hexadecimal numbers. I have witnessed the evolution of programming languages and paradigms. Because of that, I consider artificial intelligence just another form of computation. Of course, it’s a fascinating field to explore and experiment with, but for me, it’s just a means to an end. So, when I need it, I use it. I enjoy researching these systems, but ninety per cent of my experiments never get used in my artworks.

While we are on the subject, AI is often seen as something external to us when, in fact, it is human-made. It is what artificial intelligence means—concentrated human intelligence. Many researchers, PhDs, etc., develop those systems. They are trained on a huge amount of human data that has been reprocessed and tagged by human workers. As such it is displaced, encapsulated human intelligence.

Regarding AI and art, as it is a recurrent subject nowadays, it does not change the problems and questions you have to ask and answer as an artist.

Human Study #1 3RNP, Human Studies exhibition, Ara Art Centre, Seoul, 2023
photo: Ara Art Centre

Due to Covid, in 2020 in Hong Kong, you had to transform an exhibition into an intervention without an audience, a kind of theatrical ‘piece’ with actors, which you directed remotely, therefore an experience even more mediated by technology. Can you tell me about this experience?

The solo show was initially planned to coincide with Art Basel, but due to the pandemic, Hong Kong closed just before Art Basel. As a result, the exhibition was postponed and finally set up in November in Artistree a performance theatre. The setup was co-designed with Lisa Botos, the exhibition was produced by Lisa, too, with sponsorship from Swire, part of the Art Unchained event. It was a grand project, possibly the most beautiful and expensive exhibition I have ever done. However, it went unseen by the public because the theatre wasn’t authorised to open.

We decided to proceed with the Human Study #1 performance regardless, employing actors who took turns performing as sitters and assistants, along with a team of technicians. The space was equipped with multiple cameras. I designed a generative system that integrated feeds from these cameras and the robots’ cameras. The video artwork was then streamed online in real-time. This setup allowed me to work on the system like a director, giving actors directions from Brussels, as I was living in Hong Kong time.

The experience was fascinating, resulting in the most precise performances I’ve ever done. I even have a 3D Matterport map of the exhibition. Later, I produced a series of generic narrative works and digital animations based on the footage. The whole project was excellent, but it would have undoubtedly impacted my career better had it occurred during Art Basel.

Human Study #1 3RNP, Human Studies exhibition, Ara Art Centre, Seoul, 2023
photo: Ara Art Centre

You are also co-founder of alter-HEN, an eco-friendly NFT platform and artistic community born to bring back the original spirit of collaboration and community in the increasingly speculative NFT world. Can you tell me about it? How do you see the future of NFTs?

The adventure of alterHEN is part of the larger journey into NFTs on Tezos and hicetnunc. Without going into too much detail, this occurred during the pandemic and proved to be a fascinating period. We created alterHEN with Dianne Drubay and invited 20 artists to join us. “hicetnunc” was a platform, developed by Rafael Lima, a fascinating Brazilian sociologist. It was celebrated for its openness and accessibility to artists worldwide, including those from the Global

South selling affordable NFT editions. And also very importantly at the time, it was environmentally friendly. Logically after a few months, it began attracting individuals aiming to profit, introducing unfamiliar and unpleasant market practices that were coming from the excessive, speculative NFT Ethereum-based market. In response with support from the Immaterial Futures Association, now Cultech, we developed an NFT exhibition system. We intended to highlight the art, catering to artists with pre-existing practices outside of NFTs and artistic ambitions.

We designed the site as an exhibition space, featuring a series of solo shows by group artists, guest exhibitions and one by the Aksenoff Foundation. Although we didn’t continue this project, one key idea we promoted was viewing NFT editions as a new revenue stream for artists and a potential avenue for cultural activities for art lovers. If you think about it contemporary art fairs attract thousands of people yet with only a few will collect. We saw NFT editions—priced from a few to a couple of thousand euros—as a way to democratise the complex rewarding activity of collecting.

This approach creates an intimate connection between artists and collectors, giving them direct financial support and symbolic contact through digital image collecting. While it’s uncertain how this potential will evolve, Diane continues working with museums to integrate Web3 technologies.

One interesting side effect of these times is that despite my extensive use of computational technologies, my practice lacked a digital output. The need to produce digital pieces to sell pushed me to develop a system for creating works—animations or stills—rapidly, from concept to execution, within weeks. This openned a new strand to my activities where I explore the same themes of human experience and existence.

Human Study #1 3RNP, Human Studies exhibition, Ara Art Centre, Seoul, 2023
photo: Ara Art Centre

If you had to invent a definition for your work, which appears as the meeting point of many artistic trends and forms, drawing, conceptual art, robotics, generative art, performance and installation, which definition would you use?

Contemporary art, or just art. Artists should not stick to one medium nowadays, and most practices can be considered from different angles. Restricting oneself to one approach and putting a name on it is that important on the contrary. I develop my works to be multilayered to be read and experienced in different ways by different audiences.

Human Study #4, La Classe, Machine Studies exhibition, London, 2018
photo: Tommo for Merge festival

Are you working on new projects? Do you have exhibitions scheduled?

I am working on a new robot for my installations, I am trying to remove the nostalgic element.
I also have a year-long research project with Goldsmiths College and Konstanz University in Germany. I will be developing a robotic system to sketch with the idea is when you do a sketch, it is an adventure. You do not know where it will go, you have direction and see what happens on the paper, but you are your own during this journey, so it is somewhat predictable.

The idea is to have a robotic companion to accompany you, a system that intervenes in the sketching process and will pull you on an unexpected path. I’m very interested in trying to find unexpected things. I like the surprise and the freshness. For this, I am lucky, I have an advisor external advisor from DeepMind Google who will give me feedback, and I am sponsored by Robotis the robotic component company that I’ve been working with for the past twelve years.

I have a solo show at the Rue Antoine Gallery in Paris, which will open in May. It will then go to Berlin in July for an exhibition with the Expanded Art Gallery. I also have an exhibition in Regensburg (Germany) and something in Beijing and Korea later in the year.

Human Study #4, La Classe, Machine Studies exhibition, London, 2018
photo: Tommo for Merge festival

FONTI e APPROFONDIMENTI:

– official website: Patrick Tresset (link)