Alloyed Bodies: Performance-Making as Embodied Prototyping of Human-Robot Relationships

Petra Gemeinboeck, Rob Saunders

Abstract: This paper presents the Machine Movement Lab's latest performance, Alloyed Bodies, as an embodied prototyping tool for human-robot relationships. Our Human-Robot Experience (HRX) framework expands Human-Robot Interaction by focusing on more-than-human encounters. Relational Body Mapping (RBM) allows dancers to embody machinelike artifacts to generate motion data for robot design and machine learning. Alloyed Bodies explores various human-robot relationships through entanglement and concludes with immersive audience participation. We harness dancers’ expertise to investigate transcorporeal attunement to non-humanlike forms and more-than-human meaning-making. This approach opens possibilities for diverse robotic designs and inclusive relationships. Performance-making here is a mode of inquiry and prototyping tool, revealing connections between bodies and robots we may not otherwise imagine.

External IDs:dblp:conf/socrob/GemeinboeckS24