Artist's statement (FAQ style)
My paintings use robot and animal imagery to explore the human experience.
What separates humans from (other) animals? Convention says it’s our vastly superior intelligence. But artifical intelligence might one day
outclass human intelligence- in many ways it already does.
Logically, then, does that mean that artificial intelligence will also start acting human? What does it mean for humans if it does? What does it mean for humans if, more likely, it does not?
These paintings explore this concept by depicting robots doing otherwise uniquely human things- conserving nature, contemplating animals and souls, goofing around on a phone, etc. They ask: do we do the weird, uniquely human things we do because of our intelligence- or is there something else to being a human?
-Robbie Lee
p.s. The colorful stripes in some of my paintings are souls. It’s my interpretation of the method by which Rabo Karabekian (fictional abstract expressionist from the works of Kurt Vonnegut) painted living things- as vertical, infinite beams of pure color.
p.p.s. You may have guessed, but I enjoy drawing robots. Not only do they look cool, but they have no gender or race or age unless you assign them one, which ironically makes them a good symbol for people in general. Characters like robots, in terms of the multicultural idea of "windows and mirrors" are so vague that they kind of form a mirror/window combo. (Unless you're a robot, then they're mirrors.)
What separates humans from (other) animals? Convention says it’s our vastly superior intelligence. But artifical intelligence might one day
outclass human intelligence- in many ways it already does.
Logically, then, does that mean that artificial intelligence will also start acting human? What does it mean for humans if it does? What does it mean for humans if, more likely, it does not?
These paintings explore this concept by depicting robots doing otherwise uniquely human things- conserving nature, contemplating animals and souls, goofing around on a phone, etc. They ask: do we do the weird, uniquely human things we do because of our intelligence- or is there something else to being a human?
-Robbie Lee
p.s. The colorful stripes in some of my paintings are souls. It’s my interpretation of the method by which Rabo Karabekian (fictional abstract expressionist from the works of Kurt Vonnegut) painted living things- as vertical, infinite beams of pure color.
p.p.s. You may have guessed, but I enjoy drawing robots. Not only do they look cool, but they have no gender or race or age unless you assign them one, which ironically makes them a good symbol for people in general. Characters like robots, in terms of the multicultural idea of "windows and mirrors" are so vague that they kind of form a mirror/window combo. (Unless you're a robot, then they're mirrors.)