David Byrne is exhibiting his singing robot Julio at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain, as part of the show “Machines and Souls: Digital Art” (or “Máquinas y Almas”). Pondering the show’s title, he says:
I suspect that many of the show’s participants might disagree with this implied duality since much of the work here demonstrates a symbiotic relationship between artist and machineJulio is a collaboration between Byrne and robotist David Hanson. Also featured in the show are Antoni Abad, Daniel Canogar, Vuk Cosic, Evru / Zush, Harun Farocki, Paul Friedlander, Pierre Huyghe, Theo Jansen, Natalie Jeremijenko, Sachiko Kodama, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Chico MacMurtrie, John Maeda, Antoni Muntadas, Daniel Rozin, and Ben Rubin & Mark Hansen.
Read the full entry at journal.davidbyrne.com (in which, as a side note, he reflects on Justin Green’s classic comic Binky Brown and the Holy Virgin Mary), and learn more about his and Hanson’s Julio at davidbyrne.com/art. More on Hanson at hansonrobotics.com. Visit the website of the museum, which also happens to be presenting Nam June Paik’s A Tribute to John Cage (1973-1976), at museoreinasofia.es.