More than 400 thousand people have been touched by artificial emotions. This is the number of visitors to the four previous editions of the Biennial of Art and Technology held by Itaú Cultural. Since 2002, the exhibitions have not only shown, but have also helped to shape the history of the art being produced in our time.

A form of art that resorts to new technologies, subverting their uses, challenging the reasons for their creation. Some that involve already well-known devices, others constructed with the newest developments at the cutting edge of science. A robot made using a vacuum cleaner coupled to a security camera has already passed through the biennial, reacting to whoever approached it. This year, at the show’s fifth edition, rat-brain neurons reproduced in the laboratory and located in the United States remotely sense the visitors by way of sensors and then control the arms of robots that make pencil drawings on PVC tubes installed at Avenida Paulista, in São Paulo. And all of this is made to be art: technology created commercially but used to surprise, provoke and move the viewer emotionally.

And like all art worthy of the name, the works at the biennial do not need to be understood. The exhibitions are open to everyone: many, including children and the uninitiated public will have fun and interact, enthusiasts of this art will enjoy the poetic beauty of many of the works, while still others will understand the complexity of the software programs and devices that seem to have their own goals and intentions.

This year, the biennial’s fifth edition caps off a trilogy of concepts that have been guiding the selection of the artworks. In 2006, the works shed light on the question of interface from the standpoint of cybernetics, the discipline that studies the interaction between entities, without differentiating between biological and artificial ones. In 2008, the theme was emergence: artworks in which the cybernetic cycle allowed the devices themselves to generate behaviors and rules that are unforeseen even by their creators.

Now, in 2010 the biennial is guided by the notion of cybernetic autonomy – by the evolution of rules and patterns derived from the emerging behaviors of the devices themselves. In a wide sense, it is as if the devices are perceiving that their own behavior leads them closer to or further away from their goals. In this way, they can change their behavior as if they had “personality.”

To discuss, reflect and provoke the minds of viewers stimulated in light of such complex ideas, the biennial is always accompanied by an international symposium, involving debates among thinkers from diverse areas. Learn about the schedule of this edition’s roundtables and access the recordings and coverage of previous editions.

For anyone who wants to have fun, interact or reflect, the doors of Emoção Art.ficial 5.0 will be open. The show runs from July 1 to September 5, 2010, at the headquarters of Itaú Cultural in São Paulo.