Robots Have Existential Crises, TooBy David Gonzalez
When Max Aguilera-Hellweg says he is a student of the body, he’s not talking about losing himself in anatomy books or spending calm afternoons drawing sketches. His interest took him to a whole other level.
Medical school.
That decision came in the middle of a four-decade career as a photographer and filmmaker who went from working at Rolling Stone’s darkroom to traveling the world photographing science and scientists for National Geographic, Esquire, Time and many other publications. He comes off as a man of intense and varied interests — he also studied Method acting for six years — who had photographed hundreds of surgeries before embarking on making portraits of robots. It was a natural progression.
“When I photographed surgeries I would ask what does it mean to be human,” said Mr. Aguilera-Hellweg, 60. “When you look inside the human body as it is opened up, you wonder, where am I? Where do I exist? If I cut off my leg, am I still me? Where is my consciousness? I found myself in the same place as I photographed these pieces of metal and rubber.”
His exploration of those essential questions is featured in his new book, “Humanoid,” the result of his journeys chronicling the research, development and uses of robots. They run the gamut from skeletal humanoids used as stand-ins for humans in dangerous settings and androids with skin and human features that allow research into medicine and cognition to geminoids that resemble a specific person (which can include their thought processes).
He set off on this path early in his career, when he had a magazine assignment in the early 1980s to photograph a neurosurgeon. He had wanted to concentrate on the surgeon’s hands, but then she exposed her patient’s spinal cord and beckoned Mr. Aguilera-Hellweg to take a picture.
“That was a life-changing moment,” he recalled. “It was like the most precious, intimate place I had ever seen. I had to experience it over and over.”
read more and check out the presentation on nytimes.com
check out the feature Humanoid