Watch a cello-playing robot perform Hildur Guðnadóttir’s eerie music

Robot plays the cello as part of Olafur Eliasson art exhibit. Picture: Facebook: Hildur Guðnadóttir

By Helena Asprou

Guðnadóttir’s composition accompanies Danish-Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson’s, Symbiotic Seeing exhibition – originally on display at the Kunsthaus Zurich.

Award-winning Icelandic composer, Hildur Guðnadóttir has written new music for the cello – but there’s a twist.

Instead of being premiered by a living, breathing human virtuoso, the piece has been written for a cello-playing robot.

Guðnadóttir’s composition accompanies Danish-Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson’s, ‘Symbiotic Seeing’ exhibition – originally slated for display at Kunsthaus Zürich and now available to watch online.

Eliasson’s work “invite[s] us to think about us, our perception and important issues of our time.”

I recently wrote a composition to accompany Olafur Eliasson’s Symbiotic Seeing at the Kunsthaus Zurich. Here is the... Posted by Hildur Gudnadóttir on Thursday, 12 March 2020

Like many venues around the world, the Kunstaus Zürich has sadly been forced to close temporarily as the coronavirus outbreak continues.

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To make the display available to the public, Guðnadóttir, who took home an Academy Award earlier this year for her spectacular score to Joker, shared a video of the cello-playing robot on Facebook instead (watch above).

In the post, Guðnadóttir writes: “I recently wrote a composition to accompany Olafur Eliasson’s Symbiotic Seeing at the Kunsthaus Zurich. Here is the incredible Cello Playing Robot playing it live at the exhibition.”

In the clip, we see a robotic arm move back and forth across the cello – just like a real human’s – as Guðnadóttir’s eerie, dissonant piece can be heard accompanying our machine soloist in the background. Spine-tingling stuff!