The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) announced that the third instalment of NGV Triennial will include robot dogs trained to paint replicas of paintings by Japanese artist Yoko Ono.

Three Boston Dynamics robot dogs have been trained by Polish artist Agnieszka Pilat to paint a giant artwork autonomously for over four months.

“There’s a lot of anxiety about AI and robotics, and I want to show that actually in human years, these robots are young children, and they’re silly,” Pilat said.

“I think it’s artists’ responsibility [to use new technology], and we have the ability to play on a much smaller scale before something becomes global.”

NGV’s senior curator of Australian and First Nations art, Myles Russell-Cook, said that they hope to challenge the “false distinction between art, craft and design” in the Triennial.

“It’s a real all hands on deck [situation] — any idea is a good idea… And I think the result is, you get really exciting innovations that you wouldn’t get otherwise,” he said.

NGV director Tony Ellwood said this year’s Triennial will be a thought-provoking view of the world today through the lens of artists around the world.

“The artists, designers and architects of our time play an important role in helping us to understand, navigate and relate to the world around us,” he said.

“The 2023 NGV Triennial offers audiences a valuable opportunity to experience new and surprising forms of creative expression from around the globe, which, together, present a compelling snapshot of the world as it is, while also asking how we would like it to be.”

The exhibition will free to attend when it opens in December and will feature over one hundred artists.

Photo: Great Hall, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Australia by Les Butcher available HERE and used under a Creative Commons license. This image has not been modified.