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Event : 2

On April 11, 2017, I have a chance to attend graduate student, Youjin Cheng’s solo show called Dead Wood at UCLA Broad Art Center. The purpose of the show is to offer sympathy to robots as the same as humans and animals because the hitchhiking robot who has successfully traveled around Canada, Germany and Netherlands was destroyed in the United States. Youjin Cheng questions why people would destroy a robot. Do people feel threatening from artificial intelligence and robots? Or Are they jealous of robots' abilities that ordinary people cannot perform? If robots have artificial intelligence, will they be able to feel pain in the future?

Kinetic sculpture with moving robotic arms
The first thing I saw in the show is the kinetic sculpture with moving robotic arms where the plastic prototype of human organs attached. This serves very well for tearing apart the robot would feel the same as tearing apart organs in human. Then, there is a joystick hanging in front of the screen to play 3D game developed using Unity game engine. The game presents the land that the player can walk through the path where robots with variety of shapes such as insect, dolphin and cat are placed. The player can destroy the robots by using the joy stick buttons as they walk through the game. This challenges the player whether they would destroy a robot if they see one and ability to do so.


Scene from 3D game 
In my opinion, the robots should be treated with respect as one’s property, but there should not be robot rights as the same as humans and animal rights since they are the machine made of basic mechanical parts after all. As I think deeper, I think of what shall I do if I meet a robot in the street in the future. Shall I introduce myself as I normally meet a stranger? How would I know whether it is a good robot or a bad one? Should I trust them? 
I would definitely recommend this event to my classmate because it helps to extend the idea of week-3 materials (Robot + Art) from industrialization, knowledge production, and mechanization to the future implications of robot and human interaction and their social status.

Proof of Attendance


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