Machine Ménagerie
Joe Thibodeau
INDI Ph.D. Programme
Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

Machine Ménagerie is an installation of small autonomous robots living together in an artificial habitat. Ranging in shape and sophistication, these robotic creatures have no “function”. They spend their time entangled in a mesh of interactions with each other and the environment, much as we do. They are embodiments of certain human ideas about life and consciousness, and as such they can serve to critique definitions of intelligence and selfhood. Encountering non-biological lifelike entities, how do we attempt to understand their actions and reactions? How do we apply our concepts and assumptions of selfhood, agency and motivation to these objects, and what does it reveal about our ways of thinking?

This installation ran at 4th Space, Concordia University, March-April 2019; and University of Toronto, September 2019.