disarming is an augmented performative exploration of the relation between detached robot arms, artificial environments, and human observers. A learning and unlearning of locomotions in posthuman environments and times. The work playfully explores the ambiguity of disarming as a process of physical detachment and emotional attachment.

Locomotion can be seen as a primal (post-birth) instinct and ultimate act of independence. A robotic limb, somehow detached from a human-constructed technological body, tries to find concepts for advancing movements even though it initially wasn’t made for locomotion – vulnerable yet determined. Parallel to a familiar dystopian plot of technological autonomy and the feelings going with it, witnessing these first clumsy tries may awaken compassion or even a certain emotional bond.

Emanuel Gollob paints a picture of a multi-layered narrative of technology as a convoluted species and potential valuable mediator in a multi-species world. An ecological system of intertwined digital and physical realms with parallel learning/unlearning on different levels. A relational world with and between independence and still connectedness.

This work is part of an ongoing series of explorations by the artist, it´s specifiv name is disarming 05.