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Jessica Field, Semiotic Investigation into Cybernetic Behaviour
Semiotic Investigation into Cybernetic Behaviour (2003)
Jessica Field, Semiotic Investigation into Cybernetic Behaviour (2003)
Sketch courtesy of the artist

Jessica Field, Semiotic Investigation into Cybernetic Behaviour Semiotic Investigation into Cybernetic Behaviour (2003) (video)
Jessica Field
Born in Pickering (Ontario) in 1978
Lives and works in Montreal (Quebec)

Jessica Field is the youngest artist in the exhibition. Just two years before receiving support from the Foundation in 2002, she completed her training at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD), where she was influenced by a number of her professors, particularly Norman White, an electronic arts pioneer in Canada. White’s impact on Field is notable, for, like him, she creates machines able to exhibit human behaviours and characteristics. This comical use of robotics is also common among other artists, such as Doug Back, who teaches at OCAD, and Laura Kikauka, a former student at the Toronto college. Like her colleagues, Field applies a principle of humour already recognised by Bergson in his comment, “something mechanical encrusted on the living.” (1) We can also reverse one of the philosopher’s statements: we laugh every time a thing gives us an impression of being a person. (2) Field uses robotics and mechanics to create machines capable of producing human behaviours in their attempts to interact with their environment. It is through sounds though that we perceive the comic effects; the sounds of buzzers or horns express the robots’ puzzlement when humans intrude in their small community.

For Alan, Brad, Clara and Daphne, the four robots, form a community where visitors are foreigners. Yet, Semiotic Investigation into Cybernetic Behaviour is dependent on the participation of visitors, because it is they who initiate the interactions between Alan and Clara when they arrive in the exhibition space. Alan and Clara detect the visitor’s presence. Brad translates for Alan by emitting a low pitched sound, and Daphne, for example, displays the following words: “I detect movement at ten feet” on Clara’s screen. If the visitor stops moving, Alan’s motion detector light turns off, and Brad reacts within a split second by making a noise. Daphne reacts by displaying the words “It is still not moving, what do you think it was?” It is through an awareness of the “discussion” that the visitor realises that he or she is the subject of the conversation between Alan and Clara as they try to “understand” this stranger.

J.G. © FDL 2007


(1) Loose translation. Original quote in French: “Du mécanique plaqué sur du vivant.” Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (København; Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1999 (1911)): p. 29.
(2) Ibid., p. 44. Bergson wrote: “We laugh every time a person gives us an impression of being a thing.” Loose translation. Original quote in French: “Nous rions toutes les fois qu’une personne nous donne l’impression d’une chose.”
Work on display

Semiotic Investigation into Cybernetic Behaviour (2003)

Metal, plastic, motion sensor, range sensor, computer, two Data Walls, software created by the artist
Collection of the artist

Biography

Jessica Field studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD), where she was influenced by a number of her professors, including Norman White and Doug Back, two electronic arts pioneers in Canada. In fact, their influence is evident in her sometimes comical use of robotics. Passionate about her domain, she has taught it to children at the Children’s Technology Workshop in Toronto and shared her technical knowledge with students at OCAD. Field creates machines able to exhibit human behaviours and interact with their environment. Autonomous Robot; If it was broken, it would be simple, but it is not; Personal Scale; and Stumbling Robot, her first robots all created in 1999, were exhibited that same year at the 401 Gallery in Toronto (Ontario). On February 26, 2001, she brought Stumbling Robot to the Pickering Town Centre, a shopping mall, and documented the robot’s precarious ambling steps on video. She has presented her works in a number of festivals, including the Annual Subtle Technologies Festival at the University of Toronto (Ontario) and the International Festival of Video and Electronic Art in Lima (Peru). She has also participated for many years in the OCAD Sumo Robot Challenge. In 2006, her work was on display at the Station Gallery in Whitby (Ontario) and Concordia University in Montreal. Her work has also been shown at the Art Mûr Gallery in Montreal.

Links:
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Daniel Langlois Foundation