Modified industrial robot, custom hardware and software, drawing algorithm, resin pills. The Sleepers: Sculptures of human heads made from bio-based corn and copper, based on 3D scans. Scanning electron microscope photographs of psychotropic pills on steel sheet: Trankimazin 2 mg, Brintellix 10 mg, Lorazepan 1 mg, Maserati XTC

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This industrial pharmaceutical robot – a creature half organic and half digital – is assigned to perform an endless task. Driven by an algorithm, it moves hundreds of coloured pills to trace a real-time simulation of the synaptic activity of our neurons.

A series of sculptures of sleeping people, titled The Sleepers, surround the robot, while psychotropic pills photographed under an electron microscope hang on the walls.

Tranquilisers, antidepressants, anxiolytics, psychostimulants— these substances have become key parts of an alienating techno-capitalist society that treats its workers like machines.

Production: Félix Luque Sánchez
Software: Vincent Evrard
Hardware: Félix Luque Sánchez
Robot structure: Damien Gernay
3D scanning and modelling: Iñigo Bilbao Lopategui

Perpétuité II is a co-production of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (digital arts sector), Chroniques 2022 (Biennial of Digital Imagination) and iMAL.

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Artwork included in the exhibition “La Sociedad Automática”.