zoe general project description

"ZOE" is an attempt to represent human and interpersonal relationships through machinery, describing social phenomena through principles of movement, although the causes of these principles are (still) unknown. For this artproject I use active and reactive objects whose formalized behavior trigger emotion and life.

There exist different variations on this Theme, which correspond to different questions. The answers to this questions bring up new ones which shape the formalized objects in form and behaviour.

Because each answer opens up new questions, the whole project evolves in an evolutionary way and new variations will be added.

MUSEUM TINGUELY BASEL PERFORMANCE

The first question I asked myself was: What happens if there are many resemblant but not similar lifelike machines or robots which perform their behaviour in an enclosed area, interacting with each other. Which kinds of social behaviours do we interprete in this procedure ?

To be able to not have absolutely the same machines and to open up the possibility to generate individuals, every part of the body is handmade by myself.
This creates the possibility of microdifferences between the individual robots. This
Inclusion of inaccuracy and mistakes, different motors and gears, makes immediately a variation of characters to emerge. In this case the whole system is monitored from above by a videocamera and a radiofrequency control triggers the behaviour of the group through a microcontroller.

This Variation in form of an installation does not interact with the spectator, creating a zoo-like environement.

KUNSTHAUS GRAZ PERFORMANCE

The second question, resulting out of the reflexion of the zoo-like environement was: What happens if this group of robots is not inside a defined and enclosed space, but runs around in the exhibition area, without a special territory, interacting with the spectators ?

To fulfill this task, it was necessary to rethink the whole body and mind concept of the robots. To be able to be touched and taken by a spectator, it is necessary to simplify all elements to ensure a long functionality, a long lifespan. At the end the Performance variation of Zoe consists out of autonomous rechargeable robots, which interact via touchsensors with the surrounding environement and the interacting humans. In this case, the brain of the robots had only the smallest possible storage embedded, which can only save one state at once. In this case: Go forward or Go backwards. Here the before mentioned inaccuracy underlined its possibilities and power. Because each leg has a slightly different length, for the robots it is impossible to move straight forward or back. This makes the creatures walk always in circles of different sizes ensuring that every place in reachable space can be reached.

This situation, that a very simple programmed behaviour creates a highly complex one, especially if there is a group of robots involved, opened up very interesting insights into the behaviour of insects, animals or humans themselves.

The importance of the body in combination with the mind got absolutely evident, because only with this combination it was possible to create an intelligent seeming lifelike robotic group which is able to run around with humans.

PIXELACHE 2011 SUOMENLINNA PERFORMANCE

A third question which emerged immediately was: What happens now if this robots run around in the nature ?
When I was invited to be part at the Pixelache Festival , I was immediately obsessed by the surrounding at Suomenlinnen island just before Helsinki. Because there was a lot of ice and snow, it seemed to be possible to transfer one robot from the inside to the outside.
Here, the robot changes to an explorer, seeming to explore an alien world giving the possibility of a new way of looking to nature, thru the eyes of a machine.

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Science & Technology

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