Marco Donnarumma

Calyx is a sculptural installation of variable dimensions composed of multiple bodily relics in the form of skins garments. Each garment bears unique scars resulting from the manipulations of an artificially intelligent robot named Amygdala, created by the artist. The skins are in fact the relics of the robot’s performance. Every time Amygdala is exhibited, the robot uses a steel metal knife to carefully cut and sculpt a garment of skin, without any particular goal other than learning to cut.

In the beginning, a skin is soft and malleable, enabling Amygdala to sculpt it with relatively little effort. However, as the time passes, the skin dries up, eventually reaching a state of complete hardness. This makes it materially impossible for Amygdala to continue its work. Only at this point, the skin is removed from Amygdala‘s nest and stored for inclusion in Calyx.

The skins are the result of combined activity by the human artist and the autonomous robot. The initial, intact skin garment is first created by Donnarumma by hand, using a particular compound of organic materials designed by the artist to resemble human skin as closely as possible. The artist’s bodily hairs are also embedded in the skins.

When ready, the skin is hung on the body of the Amygdala, which then begins its inexorable operation of skin-cutting. Being dependent on an architecture of neural networks – a method used to embed machines with limited ‘learning’ skills – the cutting movements of Amygdala cannot be predicted and vary greatly across each performance. The skins are therefore bodily relics testifying to the computational agency of the machine.

Calyx and Amygdala are part of the 7 Configurations cycle (2014-2019), a series on the conflicts surrounding the human body in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).