Panel Statement
Chair Person: Kathy Cleland
Presenters: Simon Penny, Mari Velonaki, Anne-Marie Duguet & John Tonkin
This panel investigates the ‘signs of life’ that are exhibited by robots in exhibitions and performative environments and the ways that audiences perceive and respond to life-like qualities in robotic characters. As robots and humans come together in gallery installations and performative environments, different types of human-robot intersubjectivities come into play. Both humans and robots become ‘social actors’ negotiating relationships and modes of interaction. How do audiences perceive intentionality, personality and emotion in robots? This panel explores how the physical qualities and affordances of the robot (for example, its size, shape, form, mobility and modes of communication) affect human interaction and emotional investment. How do robots perceive and respond to their environments and to their human interactors? Beyond anthropomorphism and bio-mimesis, what other distinctively machinic ‘signs of life’ do robots display?
- Kathy Cleland is an Australian-based curator, writer and researcher specialising in new media art and digital culture. She is Director of the Digital Cultures Program at The University of Sydney, an innovative cross-disciplinary program that critically investigates the social and cultural impacts of new digital media technologies. Her curatorial projects include the Cyber Cultures exhibition series which toured to over 20 venues in Australia and New Zealand (2000–2003), the Mirror States exhibition (2008) at MIC Toi Rerehiko, Auckland, NZ and Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney, and Face to Face: portraiture in a digital age for d/Lux/MediaArts, a digital portraiture exhibition currently touring Australia and Asia (2008-2011). Kathy is a founding member the Robot Cultures research initiative set up by the Digital Cultures Program and the Centre for Social Robotics Centre at the University of Sydney. She is on the Organising Committee and is Chair of the Curatorial Committee for ISEA2013 in Sydney. csr.acfr.usyd.edu.au kathycleland.com