AD INFINITUM
Pedro Lopes in collaboration with Robert Kovacs, Alexandra Ion, David Lindlbauer and Patrick Baudisch (PT, RS, AT, DE)
Ad infinitum is a parasitical entity that lives off human energy. It lives untethered and off the grid. This parasite reverses the dominant role that mankind has with respect to technologies: the parasite shifts humans from ‘users’ to ‘used’.
Ad infinitum co-exists in our world by parasitically attaching electrodes onto human visitors and harvesting their kinetic energy by electrically persuading them to move their muscles. The only way a visitor can be freed is by seducing another visitor to sit on the opposite chair and take their place.
Being trapped in the parasite’s cuffs means getting our muscles electrically stimulated in order to perform a cranking motion as to feed it our kinetic energy. This reminds us that, with the world on the cusp of artificially thinking machines, we are no longer just ‘users’; the shock we feel in our muscles, the involuntary gesture, acknowledges our intricate relationship to the uncanny technological realm around us.
PROFILE
Pedro is a researcher who constructs muscle interfaces that read and write to the human body. Pedro’s work is a philosophical investigation of Human-Computer Integration (HCI), rather than merely ‘interaction’. Instead of envisioning technological dystopias based on the divide between human and machines, Pedro's works instantiate working prototypes in which the interface and the human become closer, blurred, increasingly physical and intimate.
The work of Pedro stems from a line of research published at top-tier scientific venues alongside Patrick Baudisch and his colleagues Robert Kovacs, Alexandra Ion and David Lindlbauer.