"8520 S.W. 27th PL" is an installation about the pointlessness of our never ending decision making process: choosing between left or right, brown shoes or black shoes, K-mart or Wal-mart. The exhibit features modified Dancing Hamster Toys, originally manufactured by Gemmy Industries Corporation.

Eight doubled-headed robotic hamsters live in identical houses, all of which are narrow and transparent. Each robotic rodent has the ability to run about in its house, using sensors to monitor the activity outside its home (the gallery viewers). The data gathered from this observation helps the rodents decide which new direction to run in. Akin to our mental decision process, this sensor system permits external forces to influence each new movement the robot makes. The result is a kind of sensorial intelligence invested in the machinery’s decision algorithms.

The robot pauses at each new sensorial assessment; the pulsing small lights installed in its two heads making it appear to be contemplating its future action. They scurry about with apparent purpose, only to bump their heads on the extremes of their homes, which in the end are their cages.

Currently an Assistant Professor of Electronic Art at Union College in Schenectady, NY, Fernando Orellana uses new and traditional media as a way of transmitting concepts that range from generative art to social-political commentary. He has exhibited extensively including at the Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Exit Art, New York, NY, LABoral, Gijon, Spain, The Tang Museum of Art, Saratoga Springs, NY Glass Curtain Gallery, Chicago, IL., The Ark, Dublin, Ireland, and The Biennial of Electronic Art, Perth, Australia. He received a MFA from The Ohio State University and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, in 1973.

http://www.fernandoorellana.com