Hipèrbole

This work was realised within the framework of a European Media Art Platform residency at Hexagram co-funded by the European Union, in collaboration with Gema FB Martín.

Hipèrbole is a mechanical and algorithmic experiment that explores what a cognitive machine might look like if built from alternative perspectives, moving away from dominant models of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Instead of attempting to imitate human intelligence, the work seeks to generate its own ways of being and relating to artificial systems.

The installation consists of a series of independent robots that, when brought together, form a kind of collective organism. Each has its own behavior, but their coexistence also gives rise to emergent and unpredictable behaviors, as if the group were developing a collective personality of its own.

The robots are built using handmade electronics, leaving both their physical structures and the logic that makes them function visible. Their cognitive processes unfold on two inseparable levels: through the execution of code and through the ways in which that code is translated into movement and physical presence. The code always remain visible in a display next to the robots.

Visitors are invited to approach the robots, pick them up, hug them, and form connections with them. The robots respond to touch through small movements and vibrations, creating a physical, intimate, and gentle relationship. Instead of communicating through words, they do so through touch, rhythm, and movement, in a kind of exchange of mechanical cuddles and little moments of tactile pleasure.

Hipèrbole investigates the characteristics that lead us to attribute life, intention, or personality to an artificial system. Through these small mechanical personalities, the work proposes a way of relating to machines not as obedient tools or threatening intelligences, but as strange organisms with which we can share space, curiosity, and affection.