Panel Statement
Panel: Signs of Life: Human-Robot Intersubjectivities
In gallery installations and performative environments robots act as quasi-autonomous agents engaging their audiences in social interaction and performative interplay. This paper looks at the different ways humans and robots interact and relate to each other and the ways audiences perceive and respond to anthropomorphic and bio-mimetic qualities in robotic characters, specifically their perceptions of agency, emotion and intentionality. The author argues that it is audience perception rather than the innate qualities of the robot that determines successful robot-audience interactions. Robot morphologies, affordances and programmed behaviours all play key roles in shaping audience perception and responses. This paper also considers the role of staging and the theatrical mise-en-scène, scenography, dramaturgy and choreography in framing the social interaction of robots and humans in gallery installations and performative environments.
- 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
Full text (PDF) p. 443-448