This talk will trace the evolution of MacMurtrie’s kinetic sculptures
and robotic “soft machines”, and recount his creative journey and process of constant reinvention, experimentation and refinement.
Today MacMurtrie/ARW are widely recognized for their innovative“Inflatable Architectural Bodies” series.
Designed and built atincreasingly large scales, these “inflatable bodies” or “softmachines”, inflate and deflate through an
articulated series ofmovements exploring the underlying essence of organic and nonorganic bodies.
After the talk
at 4pm Chico MacMurtrie will present his robotic work „Border Crosser“ in action at the Atrium of the University of Applied
Arts Vienna, Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7, 1010 Wien !
For the last 30 years, Chico MacMurtrie has created metaphors
with machinesexploring the intersection of robotic sculpture, new media installation and performance. MacMurtrie and Amorphic
Robot Works (ARW), an interdisciplinary collective he founded in 1991, have receivednumerous awards for their experimental
new media artworks,including five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, theAndy Warhol Foundation Grant, the Rockefeller
FoundationFellowship, VIDA Life 11.0 and Prix Ars Electronica. Chico MacMurtrie was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.MacMurtrie/ARW’s
works have been presented in major museums and venues around the world including the National Art Museum of China(NAMOC),
Beijing; Hayward Gallery, London; Museo de la Reina Sofia,Madrid; Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris; Museo Universitariode
Arte Contemporá neo (MUAC), Mexico City; Pioneer Works,Brooklyn, NY; Shanghai Biennale; Tri Postal, Lille,(retrospectiveexhibition),
Muffatwerk, Munich; Ex-Dogana, Rome and ZHI ArtMuseum, Chengdu. Upcoming exhibitions include: Mundos Alternos, Art and Science
Fiction in the Americas, Queens Museum, New York in 2019.
Amorphicrobotworks.org