The art movie SPOTSHOTBEYS documents Silke Grabinger's performance in 2024, during the opening weekend of the Biennale - exactly 50 years after Joseph Beuys' action "I like America and America likes me".
The choreographic and dance performance "SPOTSHOTBEUYS" reinterprets Beuys' action in an ambiguous and ironic way. In this work, Silke Grabinger confronts the robot dog "Spot," who functions as a symbol of the technological avant-garde of our time. Silke Grabinger shifts the discussion about hierarchy, possible coexistence, and mutual rapprochement between humans and modern technology into the context of the present. She dramatizes this explosive and complex relationship and, in the encounter between human nature and artificial intelligence, also reveals longings and needs reflected in every human relationship, as a seductive projection onto the artificial counterpart. She lets the idea of a deep connection shatter into reality as a pure utopia – at the latest when she removes “Spot’s” battery.
SPOTSHOTBEUYS, 2024, Video artwork of the performance from April 22, 2024 in Venice
37:27 minutes
Copyright: Silke Grabinger
A cooperation between Silke Grabinger, the Circus of Knowledge and the Institute for Robotics at the Johannes Kepler University Linz - as well as with the permission of the Fondazione Bonotto, excerpts from the video documentation of Joseph Beuys: I Like America and America Likes Me (1974), used on April 20, 2024, 5:00 PM @ Venice Venice, Cannaregio 5631, 30121 Venice, Courtesy of the Artist, © Bildrecht, Vienna 2025
Photo and video: Silke Grabinger, Karol Kensy & Meinrad Hofer
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