The Roadable Synapse by Jonathon Keats | Art+Technology Lab
In 2015, LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab awarded Jonathon Keats a grant to explore how wearable technology could enhance, diminish, or alter the identity of the wearer. The artist worked with Lab advisor John Suh and his team from Hyundai Motor Company to extend his ideas about wearables into the automotive realm. Titled the Roadable Synapse, the project’s first iteration underwent more than two years of research and development before it was realized in the summer of 2017.
Keats began his research for the project by posing the question: “Will the future of transportation be driverless?”
If so, we should expect people to identify less and less with their vehicles, turning over the road to artificial intelligence. However this driverless future is not inevitable. There are technological and cultural reasons why driving may persist. The automotive industry faces persistent challenges ranging from passenger safety to moral responsibility. What if the car of the future is not autonomous?
Keats eschewed the automotive industry’s fascination with the self-driving car, and instead went in the opposite direction. He followed a line of thought suggesting that our identification with our vehicles would intensify, like it has with other personal technologies such as smartphones. To quote the artist:
Cars may increasingly become a part of us, a cognitive and emotional extension of ourselves. They might become as intimate as wearables, driver and car operating as a physically and mentally unified human-machine hybrid. This is a future driven by automotive neuroscience rather than artificial intelligence.
About the Art + Technology Lab
Inspired by the spirit of LACMA’s original Art and Technology program (1967–71), which paired artists with technology companies in Southern California, the Art + Technology Lab at LACMA supports artist experiments with emerging technology. Through our sponsors, the Lab provides grants, in-kind support, and facilities at the museum to develop new artist projects.
To learn about projects and events presented by the Art + Technology Lab, visit http://www.lacma.org/LAB.
The Art + Technology Lab is presented by Hyundai.
The Lab is made possible by Accenture, Snap, Inc., and DreamWorks Animation.
Additional support is provided by SpaceX and Google.
The Lab is part of The Hyundai Project: Art + Technology at LACMA, a joint initiative exploring convergence of art and technology.
Seed funding for the development of the Art + Technology Lab was provided by the Los Angeles County Quality and Productivity Commission through the Productivity Investment Fund and LACMA Trustee David Bohnett.
Watch more videos from the Art +Technology Lab: lacma.org/labvideos
About LACMA
Located on the Pacific Rim, LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection of nearly 140,000 objects that illuminate 6,000 years of artistic expression across the globe. Committed to showcasing a multitude of art histories, LACMA exhibits and interprets works of art from new and unexpected points of view that are informed by the region’s rich cultural heritage and diverse population. LACMA’s spirit of experimentation is reflected in its work with artists, technologists, and thought leaders as well as in its regional, national, and global partnerships to share collections and programs, create pioneering initiatives, and engage new audiences.
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