The Imitation Game review – artificial, but not so intelligent

Manchester Art Gallery
Only Ed Atkins' crowd-sourced, poetry-spewing avatar shows signs of life in this clunky exhibition inspired by Alan Turing's test to see if machines can think

"Doors opening, doors closing," says the disembodied voice. The lift doors open, close and open again. After I've stepped out, the glass cabin ascends without me. I'm an unexpected item in the bagging area, stranded on the ground floor of Manchester Art Gallery, and going nowhere.

Nor, on my visit, is the robot in the big empty space on the first floor. It rolls quietly into the wall, backs off, tries again. Blue and boxy, with a bundle of wires draped over its top in an unconvincing, Donald Trump-ish combover, Paul Granjon's robot resembles a vacuum cleaner, or a vaguely anthropomorphised portable humidifier. This blinded Cyclops with a single, telescoping lens at the front is designed to sense our presence. The artist hunches over a laptop on the floor, looking perplexed. It should be working now the show has opened, unless it has bricked itself. It might be singing and dancing up there. Or staring out of the window, waiting for its critic to come.