Daily Press Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - Page 4
FARMERS' ANGER AT A MAD COW ROBOT
Ce A Controversial artist being paid nearly £4,000 to make robotic dogs
which mimic the symptoms of BSE infected cows at a Bristol university was yesterday
branded grossly insensitive by West farmers. French artist France Cadet will
turn a pack of 20 toy dogs into mini-robotic cows, which will splay their legs,
shake and keel over as if infected by the disease.
She claims the project, which she will be working on at the university, is designed to show the risks associated with scientific progress.
But Ian Johnson, NFU director for the South West, said the work made a mockery of the suffering of animals and farmers during the BSE crisis.
He said: "Nothing these days surprises me. BSE caused so much grief and hurt for farmers and the wounds are still raw. To try and mimic this in a robot is completely spurious and self-publicising act."
According to Ms Cadet, Dolly the cow-dog robot is in fact 50 per cent dog, 30 per cent ewe 15 per cent cow and five per cent sheep. She has also previously created a two-headed robotic dog called Schizodog and one with ears for wings on its back called the Fl yingPig.
In a previous display she created just one cow-dog, but those visiting her gallery found her work more amusing than artistic.
She said: "During my residency at UWE, I am planning to make a whole pack of robotic cow-dogs that will appear to suffer from BSE in unison.
"By using a whole pack of robotic dogs, the aim is to create a much more frightening impression than was possible with the single dog of Dog(Lab)01, which often inspired amusement, something I did not intend." Ms Cadet is being funded by the Leverhulme Trust, which makes awards for original research projects.
Dr Dylan Evans from the university's Intelligent Automated Systems laboratory will be working closely with Ms Cadet, and yesterday welcomed her arrival. He said: "It is completely mad, but this is exactly why I like working with digital artists.
"Engineers sometimes have a bit of a tendency to think inside the box and need shaking up a bit, so into this male environment comes a young, funky female artist and we get some interesting chemistry.
"They pose questions
which maybe traditional engineers have never asked of themselves and as a result
encourages creative thought." The exhibition from Ms Cadet is scheduled
to open in 2006.