IN THE film 2001: A Space Odyssey, a computer named Hal started to take over the humans on board a space ship, organising things. It seemed like a ridiculous forecast for the future.
But has that prediction in a film made in 1968 come true in 2007?
You may think it has if you visit a new exhibition Silicon Remembers Carbon opening at Liverpool’s FACT today.
The exhibition offers a retrospec- tive view of the work of Canadian David Rokeby, a man who for the last two decades has been creating inter- active shows examining the differences and similarities between humans and computers. And his computers are decidedly spooky.
They can listen to you, display your unknown movement on screen, and even create poetry out of objects you show to them.
At FACT (full title the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) they have waited a while for this particular show.
Spanish-born curator Marta Rupertez has wanted to stage it since she first arrived at FACT two years ago, and had been working on such an exhibition ever since.
“It was the human aspect that interested me,” she says. “But it has taken time to get together. It is the first retrospective of Rokeby’s work to be seen in this country.
“He started this interactive thing in the early 1980s when it must have surprised people who had never seen anything like it.”
Since then the Ontario-born, now Toronto-based, artist has won acclaim across the world and his curious installations have been shown everywhere, from galleries to the Venice Biennale.
