The Quirky, Humorous Art of Aparna Rao

In this charming talk, artist Aparna Rao shows us her latest work: cool, cartoony sculptures (with neat robotic tricks underneath them) that play with your perception -- and crave your attention. Take a few minutes to simply be delighted.

Aparna Rao is part of the duo Pors & Rao, based in Bangalore, India, and her TED Talk is absolutely charming.  I love art that engages us, but Rao describes works in progress that also interact with us.  They're neither static nor distant.  In fact, they seem so positively alive, as to have adopted the quirkiness, humor, even imperfections that make us human.  Two tiny hands hold up a sheet of paper, but in time they fidget and quiver, because they get tired after all.  In the hands of an artist like Rao, very charming in a demure way herself, recourse to technology doesn't have to render art as robotic, or impersonal, or steely.

I love the golden typewriter that Rao created for her proud, imperial uncle, who was clearly old-school.  But Rao cleverly fabricated the electronics, so what her uncle typed could be sent as e-mail.  I love the Pygmies, which, like people and animals, get habituated to familiar sounds, but react and scurry with anything unfamiliar.  But what I especially love is the room, where two or more people enter, and one of them disappears.

Rao explains, at the end, that she and Pors don't really love technology because it's such a pain.  But technology helps imbue their creative creatures with emotion and behavior, plus apparent intelligence and personality.