Animal

The Carlo Colla & Sons Puppetry Company is the largest and oldest in Europe, comprising three thousand marionettes. Each puppet has its own face, body and its own unique set of features. From time to time, one of them is chosen, dressed and prepared to go on stage. The Colla workshop is also inhabited by human beings, who treat the wooden beings as their equals, and animate them. On the other hand, the Reconfigurable Robotics Lab (RRL) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) is dedicated to developing novel robotic systems, actuators, sensors and fabrication techniques using a wide range of disciplines and technologies. They are a diverse team from various industries such as mechanical, electrical and biomedical engineering, materials, computer science, as well as industrial design. With great formal precision, Riccardo Giacconi proposes a curious and surprising dialogue which articulates the old tradition of puppetry with robotics and artificial intelligence: two totally different forms of research and creation that nevertheless share a passion for the movement of anthropomorphic bodies and their endless possibilities.

Violeta Bava