Elena KNOX

Elena Knox, b.1975, Australia

Elena Knox lives in Tokyo. With a PhD in Media Art from the University of New South Wales, she is a researcher in Intermedia Art and Science at Waseda University, Tokyo, as well as a musician and director. Knox’s art cuts through digital media, performance, sculpture, sound, music, and installation. Her recent works use frontier Japanese robots to explore identity and belief in techno-science futures, while others explore new visions of gender, persona, and existence in dreamlike, stripped-back social scenarios.

The work’s title, Pathetic Fallacy, is derived from a literary term, meaning the designation of human feelings and traits to inanimate or non-biological entities. However, the falsity that the term attributes to the idea of inanimate “feelings” may itself be a fallacy. The work is a conversation about life and death, age and youth, as well as human and non-humanity. An old woman and a young robot engage in an intergenerational conversation, yet, it is essentially a discourse between humanity and machinery. The characters gently disagree about mortality and deterioration. The young robot doesn’t believe it will age, while the old woman thinks otherwise. Aside from the discussion of life and death, the work centers around the Japanese concept of “kokoro” (heart/soul/mind) as well, probing into the notion that everything possesses a spiritual essence. Pathetic Fallacy was produced in 2014 and is the first cinematic dialogue drama involving Geminoid-F by Ishiguro Lab. (D.L)