Nicolas Darrot: Fuzzy Logic

The exhibition transforms the museum's smallest exhibition space, a former telephone booth, into a stage for automated figures, presenting a selection from Nicolas Darrot’s series in five acts. Visitors activate the "Theatre of Automatons" themselves by scanning the barcode on a custom-designed playing card, whereupon the figure comes to life, singing, dancing and moving according to its own fuzzy logic.

Darrot (born 1972 in Le Havre) lives and works in Paris. In his sculptural and installation-based practice, he creates robot puppets, automata and mechanical figures that move between theatre, technology and mythology. The artist programmes these works himself. His studio functions simultaneously as a workshop and a programming suite, where precision meets chance, as motion sequences constructed with millimetre accuracy give rise to unpredictable choreographies. This deliberate openness has become a defining artistic principle.

Fuzzy logic accepts what conventional logic excludes: ambiguity and vagueness. As a form of artificial intelligence, it enables computers to process the kinds of uncertainty inherent in human thought. Darrot’s figures embody this logic of incompleteness as they move through spontaneous dances and complex games, full of uncertainty and shifting moods.

The movement of certain figures is determined by chance. For some works, Darrot composes and programmes the soundtracks himself; for others, he uses recordings or collaborates with musicians — each element forming an integral part of the overall experience.