New Media New Forms // Hannah Lokken: Week 2 Assignment/Part 1: Ashley Pigford

I was lucky enough to have Ashley Pigford as one of my professors during my undergraduate degree at the University of Delaware. He is still a professor there teaching Graphic Design and Interaction Design. He also carries out workshops and speaks to audiences all over the world.

His personal artwork often has a connection between human and robotic or hand made and computer generated.

More specific details about his biography, publications, and work can be found on his website:
http://designisgoodforyou.com/

The following project of his stood out to me:

twoLovers

twoLovers is a series of works that is in development but the first phase of the project is documented on Pigford's website. It is in collaboration with Troy Richards and was shown at Greeleaf Gallery, Whittier College in California. Two robots move around a gallery space creating short phrases on a 14x18 foot sheet of paper. The phrases are: find me, looking, searching, lost you, where are you, no time, is there someone else, can you see me, can you hear me, where to look.
The two robots never come in contact with one another, essentially always searching for each other but never finding each other.

The result is a combination of human qualities and robotic qualities. The hope is to make the viewer question how we as humans today can now relate to robots in a way we once related to animals.

Pigford quotes philosopher Joel Marks, "Today it seems plausible to postulate that we are material mechanisms of a high order, who have evolved from common ancestors with the other animals (and plants) and may eventually merge with our digital creations to become 'trans-human' cyborgs."

Photo of the robot.

Photo of the gallery space

Video of robots in action

After two weeks of mark making

Pigford has many projects which explore this relationship between humans and robots. By doing so his use of media in his art work is relatable and eye opening and often fun. I admire his ability to create something that is highly technical but simple. The following images show a few other projects of his which stood out to me: