IMAGINE, BBC2, 9pm
RACHEL Whiteread is a sculptor who became the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993. She also achieved lots of media attention, much of it negative, for her famous artwork, House, where she pumped concrete into an old, Edwardian house and then removed its exterior, leaving the grey mass in the street. It was described as both a “post-war masterpiece” and “a lumpish eyesore”.
Her work gave attention to empty space, by filling it with concrete and then forcing emptiness to take on solidity, making the audience feel the sensation of absence. “She gave a feeling back to minimalism ... allowing memory to be both particular and personal, and also universal.”
As she won the Turner Prize, she also received news that her famous house sculpture was to be demolished and that she was being labelled “the worst artist in the world”.
Alan Yentob meets her in her studio to look back over her controversial career.
CAN WE LIVE WITH ROBOTS, C4, 7pm
THE subtitle to this documentary should be “And Do We Have Any Choice?”
Robots are taking over our jobs, providing sex and companionship, and gradually having the intelligence to make their own decisions, so I suppose we have little choice but to live with them. Our attention should now go to controlling them in case they decide to go all “Terminator” on us.
But I fear this is not the programme to tackle such a big topic. The presenter is more concerned with the artistic side and will create dances inspired by the robots he sees. So he visits a factory to see the robots at work, and describes their careful movements as “choreography” and also “a little bit scary”.
By translating robotic movements into dance, that most elegant and supple of human endeavours, he hopes to show what impact robots are having on us, and to also reflect our fears and worries about AI.
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