David Byrne You Are Not

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David Byrne You Are Not

7 August 2008

4 Comments

But honestly, who is?

David Byrne has for decades walked the balance between contemporary artist, filmmaker, author, and, oh yeah, musician. Now he adds experimental-singing-robot-innovator to his long resume for a large international art show about the soul of the machine.

Byrne’s contribution to “Máquinas y Almas: Arte Digital” (“Machines and Souls: Digital Art”) at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid had him working with Texas-based artist/engineer David Hansen and company. Byrne helped develop the expressions and body language of Julio the uncanny singing robot who performs a song in both English and Spanish.

Check out his fantastic blog where he takes you through the process of creating the robot and be sure to browse around his vast array of other blog topics.

4 Comments »

valuistics (author) said:

What’s interesting is that while the robot’s facial features are a bit warped, the ‘muscle’ movements and inhaling/exhaling of a singer are dead on. I feel it.

- 7 August 2008 at 4:03 pm

nycbone said:

I’m enjoying the concept and the challenge of this contribution to the show but I’m not getting any feeling of soul here. Just questions from the concept.

I feel more soul from the claymation of artist Nick Park’s Wallace & Gromit.

- 8 August 2008 at 2:46 pm

contributor said:

Yeah, I get as much from the animatronics on a Disney ride. Might at well be a sock puppet to me. A very fancy sock puppet.

- 8 August 2008 at 3:04 pm

valuistics (author) said:

I get way more from Disney’s robots and Wallace and Gromit (see my post on forgotten kids shows) for sure. But the concept here is king. The song is so tossed-off feeling but they designed a sophisticated robot to sing it. That’s what I’m feeling.

- 8 August 2008 at 4:22 pm