Sophie Dumaresq
Stardust - Space Invaders, Double Feature

Sophie’s practice delves into what it means to share in human and non-human relationships, exploring shared joy, love, and laughter, and communicate in a universe filled with beings whose brains, existences, and bodies are inherently different.

Her philosophical approach seeks to bring voices of inclusion and difference to future and emerging cultures of robotics, automation and computation.

Stardust is a uniquely hand-crafted robotic arm. Composed of collected ocean plastics, space junk, and human hair from Southern Victorian beaches, where it has been known to wash up. The artist has created a range of hand-casting molds from 3D models. The artist then casts these reconstituted materials into cogs, gears and connectors, from which Stardust is pieced together.

The robot arm is equipped with an endoscopic camera – an ‘eye-in-hand” that ‘watches’ you examine it. Through this exchange creating a non-verbal feedback loop of shared moments of examination and interaction.

Stardust is accompanied by a two-channel video work, Space Invaders, Double Feature. This two-channel video captures the explorative interactions between robot and artist. Space Invaders reveals the absurd and sublime nature of scale, materiality, intimacy, and the shifting, dissolving boundaries between humans and non-humans, between terrestrial and extraterrestrial bodies.

“In this age of information overload, instrumental precision and mechanic acceleration, what becomes even more important is going slow, of idling, even pausing and experiencing the ambiguity of the in-between” (Stelarc, 2024). 

Credits

Artist: Sophie Dumaresq
with thanks to the ‘Good Will Nurdle Hunting’ team.

Reference

• Stelarc (2024). LEARNING TO GO SLOW – The Uncanny and the Audacious in the art of Sophie Dumaresq. Canberra Contemporary Art Space. Exhibition Floor Brochure: Punk, Romantic, Sophie Dumaresq, 6th-15th December 2024 – Canberra Contemporary Art Space.