Nonhumotion 2.0
Summary
"It is not us that pray for us in the future."
It is difficult to encourage pro-climate action, because the effects of climate change on people are difficult to imagine far into the future. To overcome the biases of human perspectives on climate change, we imagine a nonhuman world that merely carries on human goals. NONHUMOTION 2.0 presents a robotic system that performs a pre-programmed rain dance in a world made barren and left behind by climate collapse. In the accompanying performance, a human dancer encounters the machine, imitates its empty gestures, and responds as if they carry meaning. The robotic arms, its anthropomorphic screen, and the dancer enact a world where the disappearing humans ask robots to carry on their spiritual purposes of praying for a better climate. The work stages a nonhuman witness not through empathy or fear, but through the indifferent, mechanical persistence of what survives, a nonhuman that carries on human legacies even post destruction.
Two robot arms are found in a post-climate future landscape amongst digital waste. They perform the praying movements of a rain dance continuously, reflecting directions left by previous generations of humanity, taking over even the spiritual purpose of humans even when they cease to exist. While a soundtrack plays to this climate future of ruin, a human adventurer discovers this technical remain, and realizes that the robots are enacting the same rituals that she performs with her bracelet while praying for mercy from a terrifying nature. Realizing that the robots are no longer acting for human purpose, but is rather trapped by its own identity, the human leaves them behind. The robots' own identity tries to surface itself on screen, only to be abandoned again by humanity.
Work in collaboration with Picture Rhythm Studios:
Cornershop Gallery in Mondrian Hotel, 8 Aug to 2 Sep 2026.
TedX Hong Kong, 20 June 2026.
Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong, 4 June to 4 July 2026.