The work of German art-technology collective robotlab (Matthias Gommel, Martina Haitz, Jan Zap) revolves around programming industrial robots to do rather human things, like draw people’s portraits, play music with their servos, or pick up a calligrapher’s pen and, over the course of seven months, write out all 66 books of the Bible. According to the artists’ statement (as best I can figure out the German), Bios [bible] is concerned with questions of faith and technical progress, with particular attention to the role of writing in the development and transmission of both realms. Bios, of course, has allusions to scripture as the word of life, but also encompasses the more mundane computer-scientific acronym, basic input-output system—the code that underlies the liturgies of every robot monk.
“Der Bibelschreiber,” by robotlab, from the installation bios [bible], 2007 :: via pietmondriann.com
