The Dance
The Dance is a CGI looping video work featuring Spot, an autonomous robot dog currently being produced by Boston Dynamics, enacting The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker, atop a snowy mountain, surrounded by human bones and plastic water bottles.
The work is a sombre exploration of our relationship to increasingly lifelike autonomous objects. As the camera continuously revolves around the mountain the audience becomes acutely aware that Spot is alone, enacting a perfectly executed pre-programmed routine with no one left to observe it.
The repeated actions are melancholic from the human perspective. However, for Spot, an autonomous robot that has been effectively freed from its anthropoid masters, enacting The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is a joyous occasion, celebrating its own autonomy now that there is no one left to rule over its robotic body.
Bob Bicknell-Knight is based in Suffolk, UK
Bob Bicknell-Knight (b. 1996, Ipswich, UK) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and writer, working with digital media producing films, paintings, sculptures and installations. His practice comes from a place of pessimism, exploring power structures that proliferate online and in new forms of technology, with a particular interest in the automation of work and forms of hyper consumerism.Recent projects have revolved around gambling mechanics being inserted into games; how virtual worlds are created; Amazon’s treatment of its human employees and the revolving lives of non-player characters. Bicknell-Knight has been a part of numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world.