Gomma Photography Grant 2025
Humanoids - Portraits of Robots
Photographer
Francesco Amorosino
Humanoids - Portraits of Robots
14 Feb, 2026
There is a technology that will soon become part of our daily lives, yet remains largely unknown: humanoid robots. These machines are already present in limited contexts, such as museums and factories, but many experts predict that they will soon enter our homes.This photographic project seeks to portray humanoid robots not as mere objects, but as subjects. By applying the visual language of portraiture, I aim to emphasize their human-like qualities. When confronted with their electronic eyes and hands so sensitive they can be held like a human’s, it is difficult to remain indifferent. Through my images, I seek to convey this emotional ambiguity—somewhere between fascination and unease.The project began in collaboration with three institutions: the Robotics Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, and the Robot Museum in Istanbul. I photographed their robots using flash or torchlight to isolate them from their surroundings. Immersing them in darkness alludes to the mystery that still surrounds this emerging technology—one that is only beginning to reveal itself, and whose future remains uncertain.The series was first presented at Maker Faire in Rome in October, where I continued the project by photographing additional robots.
About the photographer
Francesco Amorosino
I was born in 1984 in Basilicata, Southern Italy, and I live in Rome, where I work as a photographer, visual artist, and educator. I teach at Accademia Italiana and DAM Academy, and I run my research space, il FotoStudio, where I organize exhibitions and courses.In 2016, I won the Sony World Photography Awards in the Still Life category with Migrant Tomatoes, a project addressing illegal labor recruitment in Southern Italy through the photographic documentation of fingerprints left on the tomatoes themselves. In 2024, my series Turf Houses was shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards in the Architecture and Design category. That same year, I published my first essay, Photography in the Age of Hypercontrol, with the Italian publishing house Emuse.I am a photographer of ideas. My practice explores the limits of photography, weaving together different threads to create singular narratives. I am interested in how reality is perceived and constructed, and in the social and anthropological dimensions of superstition, religion, human rights, freedom, and our fascination with the unknown. I travel through territories in search of the origins of legends, while also reflecting on how technology is shaping our future—becoming, in many ways, our new “religion.” Still life plays a central role in my work, often employed as a metaphorical and allegorical language.For my fine art prints, I work with historical printing processes, particularly liquid silver emulsions, applied to surfaces that establish a strong material connection with the subject.Recent solo exhibitions include The Forest and the Stars at the Italian Cultural Institute in Belgrade (2021); Fantastic Voyage at the Grenze – Arsenali Fotografici Festival in Verona (2022); Open House Festival in Rome (2023); and Cosmo Photo Festival in Colleferro (2024). I also collaborate with musician Stefano G. Falcone on live audiovisual performances.
