“The Fully Enlightened Earth Radiates Disaster Triumphant. Installation by Daniel Joseph Martinez. Curious title. You look around expecting some sci-fi / philosophical mad artist piece. Nothing new to the Biennale, you think.
But the truth is, you can’t always tell a book by its cover.
In the floodlit room number three of the Cairo Opera House’s Contemporary Art Gallery, lies a body on the floor. Everyone wonders if it’s real.
Soon enough, they find out it’s not. It’s a robot.
Lying on its back fully clothed in white with a belt that says “Nobody , the robot begins to shake continuously for six minutes – epileptic fit-style – at the slightest stimulation.
Its physical details are so life-like, down to the teeth, the wrinkled neck and protruding veins, “he can easily pass for human. One look at Martinez himself completes the puzzle.
The robot is a perfect replica of the artist who created him – gothic look, inquisitive eyebrows, wiry physique and all.
We sit down for a chat (with Martinez, that is, not his “alter ego )
When did you become an artist?I’ve never not been an artist. I’ve never done anything else. I started drawing when I was five. There is no introduction, no process that I can describe. I have just always made things.
What subjects mostly interest you?Most of my work is about philosophical ideas. A lot of it is informed by the wrtings of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Evolution of human species, the distribution of power, the ruling class, the question of humanity…
When did you start creating robots based on yourself?I made my first on in 2002. A famous writer called Yukio Mishima, who is the greatest author through 500 years of Japanese literature, was an individual committed to both political change and aesthetic investigation. At 45 he committed ritual suicide – seppuku – when he had nothing else to do. Based on this concept the robot is unable to complete his own programming because he gets stuck. He is a robot in existential crisis. He cannot do what he was meant to do. He attempts to commit suicide all the time but he is unable to do it. That work was called “To Make a Blind Man Murder for the Things he’s Seen or in short, “Happiness is Overrated .
What inspired the project exhibited at the Biennale?A 1982 Ridley Scott movie called “Blade Runner . In it robots, who were smarter and more adept then human beings, were used to fight wars. They attempt to become human and come back to earth, but that are killed. They can be disposable machines that demonstrate the ugliness of humanity, but they are not able to have a soul, although they wanted it very much.
At the end of this film one of the machines is shot. It falls to the ground and has something like an epileptic fit because it was short-circuiting. So that part of the film is what this piece is about. going berserk on the ground.
We as human beings no longer have the capacity for humanity we once had, and it seems that machines are more human than we are. It’s a question, not a statement.
Why did you model the robot on yourself?When Nietzsche was dying he wrote Twilight of the Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. In that essay he discusses how for human species to evolve, to move forward, they must kill all the idols they worship. What he referred to was the biggest idol, that of the self, the ego. So in order for us to be able to evolve we need to kill our own ego. Through these self-projections, I destroy my own ego.
How did you make the robot?I have myself cast from head to toe to create a mold. All the technology is taken from Hollywood because the idea itself is derived from cinema.
It is composed like music. The machine is run by air and a computer. Originally it is composed on a computer program resembling a musical composition. The movement is operatic with a beginning, middle and an end, with rising and falling intensity.
Were you concerned about culture barriers while showing your work to Egyptians?No. I don’t know Egyptians. If I did that I would be basing my work on stereotypes. The reaction I got in the opening was what they call a “popular response . It was overwhelming because the people were fascinated. Most have never seen anything like that. No one has ever done anything like that before using this technology.
How would you compare Cairo and New York audience?In the US audiences are much more reserved, more closed. They make no overt response, there’s no frenzy. Here people were so exited and having so much fun. It was the most extraordinary thing I had ever seen. I’ve never seen anyone get into art the way they did here.
What’s your assessment of the contemporary art scene in Egypt so far?”The art world is a system that is western by nature. I am not saying art is western but the world itself as an industry is, by and large, controlled by the first world where art is extremely seductive. It has created a phenomenon were artists who are not in that system, strive to be in it. It’s globalization, it’s the free market and it’s the transaction of art.
You look at artists in Egypt and they have their own history in art. What they attempt to do is to remold themselves in a western form using the same language as everyone. I would probably argue that Egypt is at the beginning of that stage.
