The Peninsula Hong Kong’s opulent colonial lobby may be famed for its legendary afternoon tea, but it is also fast setting a new benchmark for innovative contemporary art as part of its 'Love Art' public programme.
Its current creative collaboration is with British artist Conrad Shawcross RA, whose spider-like kinetic robot performs a sensuous dance to four different musical scores in the middle of the lobby until 5 April.
The mechanical sculpture – called The Ada Project – was initially conceived in 2010, inspired by the 19th century mathematician Ada Lovelace, who predicted that calculating machines would one day be capable of composing music out of binary numbers.
‘The project uses her story as a creative springboard to try to re-physicalise the music experience to an object,’ Shawcross explains.
The robot, which sways about in time to music with a light at the tip of its ‘arm’, is not the art, says the artist. ‘The machine is simply the instrument. The artwork is the movement that becomes entangled with its music.’
‘It is like a film score that is created for a scene that has already been created,’ Shawcross explains. ‘I want to keep complete control of the machine by using particular mathematical ratios that we use to create movements.’
The artist admits that he enjoys the visual contrast between the hotel’s luxurious traditional décor and the industrial machine-like ‘sculpture’.
‘I like that kind of guerrilla form of art: the great thing here is catching people unawares,’ he says. ‘I like that it is not a museum or gallery but a room where you can relax and talk; where the robot can be part of the fabric.’
The project is a robot swaying about in time to music with a light at the tip of its ‘arm’. But, says Shawcross, ‘The machine is simply the instrument.... The artwork is the movement that becomes entangled with its music’
The mechanical sculpture was initially conceived in 2010, inspired by the 19th century mathematician Ada Lovelace, who predicted that calculating machines would one day be capable of composing music out of binary numbers
Shawcross, pictured above, explains: ‘I want to keep complete control of the machine by using particular mathematical ratios that we use to create movements.’
The artist admits that he enjoys the contrast between the hotel’s luxurious traditional décor and the industrial machine-like ‘sculpture’. The Ada Project will be on display at The Peninsula Hong Kong until 5 April
INFORMATION
The Ada Project will be on view until 5 April. For more information, visit Conrad Shawcross’ website
Photography courtesy the artist and Pensinsula Hong Kong
ADDRESS
The Peninsula Hong Kong
Salisbury Road
Kowloon
Hong Kong
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