AATB: Imitation and learning
Lifelike blobs start to roam this empty landscape, mud finally gain some footing and generations later, infinitely more complex life systems pervade the whole of the Earth.Humans are now forming the solutes that are in aconstant state of dissolution, but the solvent is digital, as we melt, mix, diffuse and weigh in and throughout algorithmic and computational systems that learn to imitate us.
As we precipitate back out of this latent solution, we become barely recognizable fragments of skeletons, limbs and masses. Digital, simulated selves, synthetic mud that slowly becomes alive, in a distant space, approximated. A game of mimicry at play, as we are observed and these quasi-machines act to track our movements. This primordial soup is imitating us and learning from us.
About the Artist
AATB treat robotics like a material—flexible, unpredictable, and almost tender. The duo, Andrea Anner and Thibault Brevet, pushes industrial automation far beyond factory logic, transforming robotic arms into performers, collaborators, and sometimes awkward companions. Their practice merges engineering with choreography: software becomes gesture, precision machining becomes play, and human–machine interaction turns into a staged, slightly uncanny intimacy. By placing robots in everyday, non-industrial contexts, AATB reveal how deeply automation already choreographs our movements and desires.
AATB’s work has been featured at leading international institutions and events, including ZKM Karlsruhe, V&A Dundee, Ars Electronica (Linz), New Museum (New York City), the Venice Biennale of Art, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Chengdu Biennale, Unfold X (Seoul), APS (Shanghai), and Beijing Art and Technology Biennale. They have undertaken residencies at CERN (Geneva) and Atelier Luma (Arles) and received the Swiss Design Award in 2021.
As educators, AATB have taught internationally at Seoul Institute of the Arts, Design Academy Eindhoven, HfG Karlsruhe, and Iceland University of the Arts, as well as at ZHdK, ECAL, HEAD, HGK, HKB, and SUPSI in Switzerland.
Artwork Location
Andrea Anner
Thibault Brevet