The lovers

Patricia Piccinini is an internationally-renowned Australian artist, who was born in 1965. She gives you a unique look into her world of frightening, yet cuddly art. With her almost lifelike, alienating sculptures, Piccinini explores whether it is possible to allow humans, nature and technology to coexist in harmony. Her fairy-tale creatures are moving and evoke empathy for what is different. She blurs the line between organic and technological bodies.

‘The Lovers’ is about artificial intelligence, the technology that becomes self-sufficient and sustains itself. By presenting two Vespa scooters as sentient beings – deer in a tender embrace – the artist asks you to imagine that machines have life cycles, fall in love and can reproduce. This would lead to the both alarming and conceivable possibility of a world in which technology – just like nature – is not under our control.

At its core, this work is about love and control or rather, about a lack of control. We cannot control who we love, nor can we control who someone else loves. Just as we cannot control nature and possibly also the future of technology.