[ISEA2011] Panel: Mari Velon­aki – The Making Of Diamandini: Per­cep­tion, Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, Emo­tional Ac­ti­va­tion dur­ing Hu­man-Ro­bot In­ter­ac­tion

Panel Statement

Panel: Signs of Life: Human-Robot Intersubjectivities

The paper will pre­sent and dis­cuss Mari Velon­aki’s new pro­ject, the hu­manoid robot ‘Dia­man­dini’, in the con­text of Per­cep­tion, Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and Emo­tional ac­ti­va­tion dur­ing hu­man-ro­bot in­ter­ac­tion. Dia­man­dini is a five-year col­lab­o­ra­tive re­search pro­ject con­ducted by Mari and ro­bot­ics sci­en­tists at the Cen­tre for So­cial Ro­bot­ics, Aus­tralian Cen­tre for Field Ro­bot­ics at the Uni­ver­sity of Syd­ney. The pro­ject aims to in­ves­ti­gate in­ti­mate hu­man-ro­bot in­ter­ac­tions in order to de­velop an un­der­stand­ing of the phys­i­cal­ity that is pos­si­ble and ac­cept­able be­tween a human and a robot. An­other as­pect of the pro­ject is to dis­cover through ex­per­i­men­ta­tion how human in­ter­ac­tion with an em­bod­ied ro­botic char­ac­ter is af­fected by as­sign­ing ‘per­son­al­i­ties’ and ‘emo­tional states’ to the robot. The Greek word for in­ter­ac­tive is aµdµs, or am­phi-dro­mos (amphi: around on both sides of, dro­mos: street or road). Thus it is de­fined as a mid­dle point where two roads meet. In Eng­lish, the prepo­si­tion ‘inter’ means ‘be­tween’ or ‘among’. In­ter-ac­tion, there­fore, sig­ni­fies be­tween or among ac­tions. A meet­ing point be­yond ac­tion and re­ac­tion and prior to dis­course, a brief mo­ment of recog­ni­tion be­tween two par­ties. The paper uses Dia­man­dini as a case study to de­con­struct se­quen­tial stages of in­ter­ac­tion: ini­tial meet­ing, then per­cep­tion and recog­ni­tion, fol­lowed by emo­tional ac­ti­va­tion. This emo­tional ac­ti­va­tion can lead ei­ther to in­ter­ac­tion with the robot, or cause a re­ac­tion where the spec­ta­tor chooses to ab­stain from en­gag­ing with the robot by, for ex­am­ple, leav­ing the ex­hi­bi­tion space.

  • Mari Velon­aki is a media artist and re­searcher who has worked in the field of in­ter­ac­tive in­stal­la­tion art since 1995. Her prac­tice en­gages the spec­ta­tor/par­tic­i­pant with dig­i­tal and ro­botic “char­ac­ters” in in­ter­plays stim­u­lated by sen­sory trig­gered in­ter­faces. Her in­no­v­a­tive hu­man-ma­chine in­ter­faces pro­mote in­ti­mate and im­mer­sive re­la­tion­ships be­tween par­tic­i­pants and in­ter­ac­tive art­works. She was awarded a PhD in Media Arts at the Col­lege of Fine Arts, Uni­ver­sity of New South Wales (AU) in 2003. Since 2003, Mari has been work­ing as a se­nior re­searcher at the Aus­tralian Cen­tre for Field Ro­bot­ics. In 2006 she co-founded with David Rye the Cen­tre for So­cial Ro­bot­ics within the Aus­tralian Cen­tre for Field Ro­bot­ics at the Uni­ver­sity of Syd­ney. In 2007 Mari was awarded an Aus­tralia Coun­cil for the Arts Vi­sual Arts Fel­low­ship in recog­ni­tion of her body of work. In 2009 she was awarded a pres­ti­gious Aus­tralian Re­search Coun­cil Queen Eliz­a­beth II Fel­low­ship (2009-2013) for the cre­ation of a new robot. This re­search that in­ves­ti­gates hu­man-ro­bot in­ter­ac­tions in order to de­velop an un­der­stand­ing of the phys­i­cal­ity that is pos­si­ble be­tween a human and a robot. Mari’s media art in­stal­la­tions have been ex­hib­ited in mu­se­ums and fes­ti­vals world­wide.

Full text (PDF) p. 2472-2474