Panel Statement

Panel: Bio-Architectures, Virtual Cities: The Revolutionary Human-Machine Community

Long before the advent of computers, humans gained access to technology through simple interfaces. Examples include light switches, the knobs on a radio, and the buttons on a telephone. Reusing these common household interfaces in emerging technologies uses a common language to leverage previous skills and connotations, while affording immediate access to the general public. In this talk we chronicle the development and application of the Telephone/Television Hybrid Interface (TTHI). The television and the telephone, ubiquitous in developed nations, unite to provide remote perception and remote action to convey real-time remote experience, or telepresence. The projection of human will into remote environments is explored through this interface as direct manipulation of the human body, teleoperation of a robot to explore remote environments, and cooperation with a cyborg to experience emotion.
The group will present five recent projects at the Centre for Metahuman Exploration as examples. The TTHI has been used to directly stimulate human muscles (`The Interactive TV Show’), manipulate the arm of an American voter (Absentee Ballot’), drive a NASA robot through the Atacama Desert (`RoverTV’), pet a bunny rabbit (`Petting Zoo’), and manufacture an experience of remote love (`Project Paradise’).

• Centre for Metahuman Exploration, Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburg. USA.