Dancing Robots

Robots have a long history as a tangible platform through which designers and artists can explore human and social experiences. From Pierre Jaquet-Doz’s Automatons from the Eighteenth Century, to Dunne & Raby’s technological dreams of non-anthropomorphic robots that assist our lives [1], robots have been a rich form of technology that artists and designers have used to explore the human condition and how we relate to technology. This studio will give an introduction to small programmable robots and participants will learn how to use them to develop collaborative performances. Following an introduction, participants will be given the choice to work with bespoke robots (arduino based) or an e-puck [2] robot, participants will work in small groups to develop behaviours that, infer a form of robot dance. For a dance based upon a twitter feed or perform a collective task that assists a human. The studio will culminate in a series of performances by the bots that explore the potential for robots as materials for designing with data.