This program is free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first served.

Chico Macmurtrie is an award winning artist, renowned internationally for his large-scale robotic sculpture, whose work combines materiality and robotics, the visceral and conceptual. His artist residency and interdisciplinary project "Border Crossers," led by the Institute for the Humanities, encourages investigation of borders as constructed entities, both embodying a simple curiosity to see what lies on the other side of a border (national, architectural, environmental, etc.) and expression of a utopian desire to live in a world without borders.

Students across campus—from LSA, Engineering, Art and Design, and Information—will work with the artist planning, building, and launching a 40-foot robotic sculpture that poetically explores the notion of borders and boundary conditions. The project symbolizes the humanities in action, and the empowerment that can be achieved through working together, overcoming obstacles and divides, and discovering creative solutions.

Chico MacMurtrie is the Artistic Director of Amorphic Robot Works, an interdisciplinary creative collective located in Brooklyn, NY. MacMurtrie/ARW have received numerous awards for their experimental new media artworks, including five grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation Grant, the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, VIDA Life 11.0, and Prix Ars Electronica. Chico MacMurtrie was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts in 2016.

Join us for a reception at the exhibition opening directly following the lecture, at the U-M Institute for the Humanities at 202 S. Thayer in Ann Arbor.

This program is co-sponsored by the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Visiting artist Chico MacMurtrie's residency and project is sponsored by the U-M Institute for the Humanities in collaboration with Michigan Robotics, Michigan Engineering, School of Information, Penny Stamps Speaker Series, Stamps School of Art and Design, and ArtsEngin.