Art without human gesture: the challenge of robots in Pietrasanta

In Pietrasanta, between marble workshops and state-of-the-art robotic arms, a debate opens up that is not just technical, but philosophical: Can art exist without human gesture?

I take my cue from a very thoughtful intervention by Giacomo Castagnini, author of an article recently published in The Art Chronicles, and to the local press, which have sparked discussion:

“Who sculpts today? The man or the code?”

“Human Connections“, sponsored by sculptor Filippo Tincolini, and by the City of Pietrasanta, highlighted the issue.

Artists, artisans, and technologists confronted a question that has long ceased to be merely technical: When can a work made by a robotic arm still be called art?

Art critic Castagnini, in his article, speaks of “silent metamorphosis” a Pietrasanta.

It is a revolution, yes, because it changes the heart of art making: the gesture. And it is inevitable because technology is advancing, and the art world, like any other professional or artistic world, cannot be immune to it. But each step brings with it a loss, and the stakes are high: one risks losing the dialogue between hand and matter.

We are witnessing, undoubtedly in the round, and not only in the field of art, a profound transformation. It is not just the entry of new technologies into laboratories: a paradigm shift is taking place. The human gesture, full of mistakes and intuition, is giving way to automated processes. And with it, the deepest sense of –making art-.

As indeed is writing, or doing journalism by exploiting AI. Where will the journalist’s cognitive and processing process go if we entrust everything to a system that, however precise and complex, is inhuman?

Returning to the field of art, the reflection to be made at this point is: Art or Product?

A robotic arm can replicate the work. Undoubtedly it can. It can do much more, let alone build a product by programming the machine. But that is not the point, but rather more: can it create?

It can copy, refine, repeat. But it cannot interpret. Art arises from an intention, a conflict, an emotion, a choice that also involves risk. The machine does not risk, does not make mistakes, does not listen. It is efficient, but mute.

And without listening, without dialogue with matter, there can be no authentic creation.

“Need a criticism that judges not by taste, but by sense.” how to disagree!

I quote Kant, Plato, Duchamp (1887-1968), who was nourished by philosophy, speaks of art that abandoned sensible immediacy to become concept. “Fountain” (1917), the famous urinal turned upside down and displayed as a work, does not represent, but interrogates. Robotic sculpture threatens to reverse this: from demand to product.

Why is it important to bring philosophy inside the workshop? Because philosophy reminds us that art is not just aesthetic pleasure. It is knowledge, it is questioning of the real. Duchamp taught us that art is not what it represents, but what it questions. If we go back to perfect but mute art today, we are regressing.

The machine risks taking us back to the object, skipping the question. In Pietrasanta a “middle ground” is proposed: the machine sculpts, the man finishes. Is this a solution? It is a useful compromise, certainly yes, but it is not enough. Finishing is not creation. It is certainly necessary and is intended to give the extreme beauty to the work made, but if the essence of the work is delegated to the code, we risk losing the sense of art as a human experience. The gesture is not simulated. That is where the relationship between artist and material is born.

But art is not just form: it is intention, error, risk. The machine knows no hesitation, and right there – in the hesitation – authentic work is often born.

Artificial intelligence works on the sum of possibilities; humans choose only one path, making mistakes. And it is that “mistake” that makes him an artist. The mistake of the craftsman’s hand. The human error. The beauty of imperfection.

Because the craftsman, who suffers today because he feels supplanted by machines and new technology, was not and still is not just a doer: he is a keeper of knowledge, of errors handed down, of significant imperfections.

The risk is that the “know-how” is replaced by a “knowing how to program” disembodied. The gesture contains a memory, an ethics. Without the gesture, the work also loses its humanity.

In the finale of his piece, the critic, imagines Pietrasanta in 2050 as a museum-city governed by algorithms. But he leaves a glimmer-and it is this glimmer that becomes a breach and then an opening. Yes, because art history is about the unexpected. Even in the domain of technique, someone will return to the gesture, the fragment, the gap. For that is where art is rekindled. Where there is imperfection, there is life. And where there is life, there is still room for meaning.

In conclusion, what makes a work truly “necessary” today? I would be inclined to answer that it is its ability to expose us. Of putting us in crisis. A work is necessary when it disarms us, when it asks us to look at the invisible in the visible. Everything else-whether made by hand or machine-is decoration. Not Art. A work must not only be beautiful or well made, but it must force us to look at something we did not know we were seeing. A work is necessary when it exposes us to our own fragility.

Everything else is object. Or decoration. Even if well programmed. And no longer with the signature of the artist, but of the algorithm. In fact, upon closer inspection, he is the real artist. Or is he?