Anthropocentrism and the Staging of Robots
Louis-Philippe Demers1
, Jana Horakova2
1
Interaction and Entertainment Research Centre, 50 Nanyang Dr., Research Techno Plaza,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637553
lpdemers@ntu.edu.sg
2
Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Musicology/Interactive Media Studies,
A.Novaka 1, Brno, Czech Republic
horakova@phil.mu.cz
Abstract. By investigating the representations of the human throughout a
history of the robots, we analyze robotic performances from a theatrical
audience ‘pragmatic’ point of view. Hence, this interpretation of robots as
performers, or staged robots, involves an act of suspension of disbelief as a
first and constitutive condition of theatrical reality. As an early analysis of
robotic performances and robots as performers, this paper focuses on the
notions of anthropomorphism and anthropopathy.
Keywords: Robotic art, kinetic art, acting, puppetry, artificial intelligence,
artificial life, theatre, stage, ontology.
1 Introduction
What is it that we see on a theatrical stage? It is said that it happens here and now but
is it real? Or is it just an illusion? Theatre theory and practice no longer look upon
stage production/theatrical performances as being more or less realistic, naturalistic,
stylized or openly artificial reality. Theatrical reality has statute of an illusion or a
fiction that indicates, evokes and suggests something, but not strictly embodies it.
From a semiotics perspective, theatrical performance is considered as means to
transform ‘reality’ into sign-systems1 and/or into a play [2, 34, 38]. This leads
towards a formulation of theatre as a laboratory of sign productions and their
interpretations. Consequently, robotic theatrical performances deal with the dynamic
processes of the sign-robotic creation of significance and interpretations of meanings,
within specific cultural and historical contexts. Deleuze [8] positions the mechanical
realm within its context: „The machines don’t explain anything, you have to analyze
the collective arrangements of which machines are just one component.” Mumford
[29] equally analyzes that machines are a mythical construction, which are not solely
a complex tool (apparatus) but also a social apparatus. They are not only constituted
1
In the body of this text, we will refer to sign-systems by the doublet sign-signifier, for
example sign-action.
of material parts but also of immaterial elements, of a mentality and a belief into a
goal or an effect.
This paper will focus on an understanding of robotic performances and robots as
performers from the audience perspective by questioning the human ability and need
to identify, empathize and project him/herself into performers, either objects or
humans, on the stage.
Fig. 1. Robot characters from Le Procès (1999).
The robotic characters depicted in Figure 1 are the main protagonists of the
machinic performance adaptation of Le Procès, a novel by Franz Kafka (Kafka 1925,
Demers 1999). These robots are deliberately part zoomorphic (an arm, a hand), part
mechanomorphic (the lower body is a simulation platform structure); a sign-design
that vehicles both the inert and the living aspects of the performing objects. In parallel
to human performers, we can ask, whether and how are these robot performers able to
carry an alternate set of sign-systems of their bodies (shape, material) and their
behaviors (actions).
The semiotic system of theatre is based on theatrical convention as well as on
automatisms of (human) semiological communication and understanding. Dennett
refers to one of these automatisms when he sustains, that intents are attributed to
outside agents that act upon the physical world [13]. This raises questions about the
level of anthropomorphism needed in robots to attribute intent onto their behavior [15,
26]. It also raises discussions in relation to the act of projecting intent, questioning if
this is an inevitable reflex or not [16].
2 Robots – A History of Lures
The history of representations, models and simulations of the living by means of
mechanical objects is around two millennia old. This history is driven by the ongoing
quest for a true genesis and the deeper understanding of the inner self or the universe.
It is significant that outcomes of this effort, embodied in different robots/machines,
are typically exploiting theatrical means [20, 36]. Theatrical stage allows, by it’s
ambiguous ontological character, to arrange mise-en-scenes that resonate with the
paradoxical status of the quasi-living entities.
2.1 Artificial Humans – an early quest
In recent artificial intelligence (AI), the so-called social robots have mainly embraced
the humanoid form with friendly behaviors as the privileged mode of
intercommunication [17]. The urge for humanoid form/appearance of robots, in the
contemporary sense of the word, connects them with a long history written in myths,
legends and even in real experiments. This demand includes in itself two motives: On
one hand – it is the human dream to create an artificial human being. We can analyze
this as an attempt to imitate a ‘Creator’, to make a creature in our own image or even
to discover the secret of life. On the other hand – it is an entirely practical ambition to
make optimal or perfect servants of man (this motif is often connected with utopian
projections of an ideally ordered social system). Already Aristotle in his fundamental
work Politics wrote: “For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying
or anticipating the will of others, like the statue of Daedalus, or the tripods of
Hephaestus, which, says the poet, ’of their own accord entered the assembly of the
Gods’; if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre
without a hand to guide them, chief workman would not want servants, nor master
slaves.” [1]
Robotic art emerged in 1960’s (see section 2.5), around the same time as Robotics
and Artificial Intelligence - scientific and engineering disciplines that have developed
from assumptions established by Cybernetics. However, robotic art has deeper roots
and a rich cultural history. It refers to modern science-fiction as much as to artificial
creatures (either real or imaginary) from ancient artificial maidservants, mediaeval
Golem and Homunculus of Renaissance to Enlightenment androids.
Tomas writes about historical modifications of human-machine relationship as the
“machine-based history of western body” [39]. Tomas often refers to Cybernetics
discourse, particularly to Norbert Wiener’s writing on a history of mirroring of human
body in machine. Wiener (1948) [40] traced parallel history of machine and human
body when he presented a history of automata that was divided into four stages that
generated four models of the human body: A mythic Golemic age that refers to the
body as a malleable, magical, clay figure. The age of clocks (17th and 18th centuries)
that sees body as a clockwork mechanism. The age of steam, that Wiener saw as an
originator of the governor mechanism itself (pate 18th and 19th century) that brought
about body as a “glorified heat engine, burning some combustible fuel instead of the
glycerin of human muscles”. And finally the age of communication and control
(Cybernetics), an age marked by a shift from power engineering to communication
engineering, from “economy of energy” to the economy based on “the accurate
reproduction of signal” that understand body as an electronic system.
2.2 Čapek’s Robots
It is impossible to interpret and understand robot and robotic art out of its cultural
context and history, outside amount of different connotations and associations
connected with the word robot.2 The word robot appeared for the first time in a play
R.U.R. Rossum´s Universal Robots (National Theatre in Prague, 1920/21) by Czech
writer Karel Čapek.3 Figure 2 (left) shows the robot embodiment in the first official
stage production of the play, whereas the right image shows the robot as a
puppet/apparatus in a later production (Paris, 1924). The variation between
mechanized man on the left and the humanoid machine on the right side indicates an
interpretative shift on the understanding of Robot during the 20th century [23, 24].
Fig. 2. Robot character from RUR. Left, first night in Prague. Right, later in Paris
Karel Čapek wrote about concepts/ideas that stand behind his decision to write
‘play about Robots’. It shows Čapek’s understanding of his Robot/s as an
embodiment of the image of man of his time, formed by industrial serial mass
production (see machine-based history of human body [39]),. “Robots were a result of
my traveling by tram…People were stuffed inside as well as on stairs, not as sheep
but as machines. I started to think about humans not as individuals but as machines
and on my way home I was thinking about an expression that would refer to humans
capable of work but not of thinking. This idea is expressed by a Czech word robot.”4
2
The word robot is a neologism derived etymologically from the archaic Czech word robota.
Robota means in Czech –– a drudgery or an obligatory work.
3
R.U.R. is interpreted as a comedy of confusion in which we are not able to distinguish
between man and Robot in [22].
4
Čapek, K. […] Evening Standard (June 2, 1924). In Čapek, K. R.U.R. Halík, M. (ed.)
Československý spisovatel, Praha, 1966.
Čapek connected his Robots with history of artificial creatures. Specifically with
Prague Golem legend, when he sad: “R.U.R. is in fact a transformation of the Golem
legend into a modern form…. Robots are Golem made with factory mass
production.”5
A further understanding of the origins of the Robot character is to be derived from
the many other artificial creatures of the Čapek brothers. The short story Systém
(System) (1908/18) is often mentioned as an earlier version of R.U.R. plot. The story
is based on the idea of “culturally reformed” workers adjusted for manual work
exclusively. In an Instructive Story (1908) and L´eventail (1908/16) brothers Capek
brought into the fiction Jacquet-Droz (see next section) as a real character and his
fictitious mechanical androids (see fig. 4).
The theme of mechanical humanoid machines is present in separate work by Josef
Čapek, the real author of the word, as well. One instance appeared as “mechanical
alter-ego” constructed by an engineer in his short story Opilec (The Drunkard)
included in collection Lelio (1917). However, the mechanical double is called simply
“mechanism”, not a Robot in the story.
Fig. 4 L’eventail/Lady with a fan. Able to say only “si” or “no”. Illustration from J. Čapek´s
Homo Artefactus (1924)
Artistic essay Homo Artefactus (1924) by Josef Čapek is both a recapitulation and
a satirical commentary on the theme of artificial man that appeared in the beginning
of the 20th century as a notion of a ´new man´. “The action of a young scholar dr.
Karel Čapek was very overrated. … According to Čapek’s theories and promises this
robot should replace workers, but we are claiming openly that it was not very useful
in practice; it was used only in theatrical services (…). For that matter, just as living
automata of older times were fully constructed from machinery, so they were not in
fact humans, Čapek’s robots were made exclusively from an organic jelly so they are
neither machines nor less human. … when he promptly recognized Čapek’s trick and
after a first production of robots stated that there had to be some swindle in it” (see
fig.2 and 3) [7].
5
Čapek, K. R.U.R. Prager Tagblatt (September 23, 1935). In Čapek, K. Divadelníkem proti své
vůli (ed.)Halík, M. Orbis, Praha, 1968.
2.3 Androids
The swindle or trick of Robot can be found in the ambiguous status of artificial
human-like (androids) creatures existence. It is present not only in the case of
fictitious artificial creatures but also in the case of ‘real’ mechanic puppets or
androids. As Sussman [36] argues, thaumaturgical strategies often further intensifies
this trick during their public performances. Sussman started from assumption that
“Certain pre-technological performances (…) can give us some insight into the tense
metaphoric operations and interconnections of faith and skepticism, or belief and
disbelief, in the staging of new technologies (…)”. In his analysis of staging of Chess
Player automaton by Wolfgang von Kempelen from Bratislava, Sussman came to the
conclusion – which can be extended to context of androids/automatons staging in
general: “The automatic thinking machine that concealed, in reality, a human person,
can be seen as a model for how a spectator might reify, and deify, the hidden power at
work in a new form of intelligent machinery (….) The visual proof was, first, the
demonstration of control at a distance; and, second, the transmission of human
intelligence into inanimate body of the object; the performing object that animates
both demystification and reenchantment.”[36]
Androids/automata are often connected with the effort of their designers to show
their own (human) competence and workmanship. We can find references to
designers of anthropomorphic automatons since Antiquity (Architás from Tarent,
Hérón Alexandricos called Mechanicos). Ample references to androids and their
creators in the periods of Rococo and Neoclassicism (Enlightenment, 18th century)
denote the high popularity of mechanical dolls in these periods. Swiss mechanists and
clock workers, father and son Pierre and Henri Louis Jacquet-Droz (1721-1790,1752-
1791) constructed The Writer, The Draftsman and The Musician (lady playing the
piano) Arguably Jacquet-Droz might used to program his automaton to write the
sentence "Cogito ergo sum" in order to make a play of words on Descartes
contemporary theories. This play reflects the undecidable (in logic systems, neither
true or false) status of the artificial being; a similar logical problem found in the
recursive statement: “I am a liar.”.
The ambiguous existence of androids/automata was enhanced not only by the way
they were staged [36], but also by their appearance. Wood takes notice that in the Age
of Enlightenment, androids/automata were frequently designed in the image of
children: “Some inventors intended their objects to be artificial forms of an eighteencentury
ideal-the child as a blank slate, the purest being.”[42] Moreover, JacquetDroz’s
barefoot writing automaton with its schoolboy appearance represents
conviction of that period that children would learn more freely if unhampered by
shoes [42]. Child-like appearance served as a trick that would manipulate audiences´
evaluation and impressions from the performance as well: “their creators wanted them
to look young so that the mistakes resulting from their early efforts (as a prototypes)
would be forgiven.”[42] The android’s child-like appearance functioned as a sign of
perfection (innocent beings) and suggestion of automatons’ ability to learn as well as
a trick that change audience’s attitude towards (possible) unexpected failures of
automatons.
These automatons ontology was masked/camouflaged6 and interpreted as an
ambiguous fluctuation between the mechanic and organic, between living and nonliving.
“When Pierre Jacquet-Droz exhibited his writing automaton in Spain, he was
accused of heresy; both the man and the machine were imprisoned for a time by the
Spanish Inquisition.”[42] A journalist that experienced one performance of „Musical
Lady“ reports acceptance of androids liveliness. The android was advertised on poster
as a “vestal virgin with a heart of steel”, but the journalist gave us a different
impression when he wrote: “she is apparently agitated with an anxiety and diffidence
not always felt in real life.”[42] The android seems to him to be more alive than life
commonly manifests itself.
2.4 Puppets: Inert performers
Robotic performers and puppets share two essential characteristics: they are inert
entities further “animated” and are called upon to perform in the front of an audience.
In addition, puppets’ morphologies, as for robotic performers, vary widely from
virtual disembodied shadows or abstract objects to strong human representations.
Tellis[38] states that puppets that attempt to imitate human often create a superficial
sense of realism. The illusion of life derived by movements exclusive to their
morphology can more easily encourage the audience to accept the living existence of
an otherwise inanimate object.
Tellis argues that the puppet takes on its metaphorical connotation because it
inherently provokes the process of double-vision, creating doubt as its ontological
status. On the other hand it is an example of theatrical suspension of disbelief and
projection of audience psychological movements into the actor/character, because
“anxiety and diffidence” is a typical human reaction to an artificial double. Sigmund
Freud calls it “the Uncanny” [18]. Based on Freud, robotics engineer Mori coined the
expression “Uncanny Valley”, an area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with
appearance and motion between a "barely-human" and "fully human" [28].
2.5 Puppets as Actors / Actors as Puppets
Čapek wrote his ‘play about Robots’ in the beginning of 20th
century where
culminates an inspiration of machine aesthetics: the ‘rational’ avant-garde artistic
movements of Futurism, Constructivism or Bauhaus. Even in Surrealism we can find
principle of creativity based on an autonomous mechanism (automatism) of dream.
Avant-garde artists’ attitude toward machine is spread over whole scale from
Futuristic and Constructivist adoration of machine to fear and skepticism connected
with confrontation of man with individual transcending non-human machinist systems
(e.g. Expressionism).
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of Italian Futurism, wrote in his manifesto
Multiplicated Man and Empire of Machine that: “Engines (…) are really mysterious
6
There are examples of ideas of Androids that bleeds ‘real’ blood or covered with ‘real’ skin
[42].
(…). They have their moods, unexpected bugs. It seems that they have personality,
soul, will. It is necessary to stroking them and to behave with respect to them (…)”
[35]. This quotation illustrates an anthropomorphic and anthropopathic understanding
of machine by Futurists, in sense of system complementary or analogical with a
human. From this understanding springs the concept of an ideal member of modern
society – the ‘man-machine’ fusion arisen from their harmonization and mutual
resonance. The ideal of modern human as an individual equipped with machinist
qualities as speed, dynamics, or ambiguous moral attitudes.
We can find similarly positive relationship to machine in Russian Constructivism.
In opposition to Italian Futurism, it is about more complex understanding of
technology and at the same time about collective understanding of human. Significant
example of Constructivist aesthetics is Mejerchold’s theatrical Biomechanics – a
series of exercises for actors that should give ability to control their bodies as
instruments or as machines to them. Mejerchold himself said about his method:
“According to given study of human organism, biomechanics try to raise a man, that
would examine mechanism of his construction, he would perfectly control and
complete it. Contemporary man that lives in an age of mechanization can’t ignore
mechanization of his organism’s kinetic system. Thanks to Biomechanics we will
establish principles of exactly analyzed and than performed motions. (…)
Contemporary actor have to behave as a modern automobile on a stage.”[32]
According to Constructivism, stage becomes a place where human mechanisms
regulated by directors – their designers and mechanics - are presented.
While in case of the Futurists, the idea that human aligned with the machine leads
towards individual emancipation and the super-human (in the sense of Nietsche´s
superman), in the case of the Constructivists’ Biomechanics, we deal with
mechanization of man that releases him from individuality and he/she becomes part of
a complex ‘human machine’. Futurists suggest the concept of super-man as an
unloving automaton, while Constructivist stage production is understood as a megamachine
constituted of human components. In other words, human group
performance is understood as a mega-machine production. This discourse leads
towards at least conceptual mechanization of man and anthropomorphisation of
machine. In both cases we can talk about mirroring of man in machine and machine in
man.
Part of this relatively early-completed evolutionary line of theatrical experiments
inspired by machinist aesthetics, are theatrical performances on the Bauhaus stage.
Schlemmer’s theatrical experiments were a search for “elements of movement and
space” [19]. His inspiration by Visual art is reflected in his understanding of dancers
on the stage as objects and in his performances that evoked mechanical effect
reminding puppet theatre. We can read in Schlemmer’s diary (1971): “Might not the
dancers be real puppets, moved by strings, or better still, self-propelled by means of
practice mechanism, almost free of human intervention, at most directed by remote
control?” [33]. It is a fact that from a year 1923 puppets, mechanical figures, masks
and geometrical costumes became characteristic feature of many theatrical
performances of Bauhaus.
Another Bauhaus member, Moholy-Nagy (1924) goes even further in the The
Mechanized Eccentric (Die mechanische Exzentrik): “Man, who no longer should be
permitted to represent himself as a phenomenon of spirit and mind (…) his organism
permits him at best only a certain range of action, dependent entirely on his natural
body mechanism. (…) The effect of this body mechanism (Korpermechanik) arises
essentially from the spectator's astonishment (…). This is a subjective effect. Here the
human body is the sole medium of configuration (Gestaltung). For the purposes of an
objective Gestaltung of movement this medium is limited, the more so since it has
constant reference to sensible and perceptive (i.e., again literary) elements. The
inadequacy of "human" Exzentrik led to the demand for a precise and fully controlled
organization of form and motion, intended to be a synthesis of dynamically
contrasting phenomena (space, form, motion, sound, and light). This is the
Mechanized Eccentric.” [30]
Schlemmer’s dream about ideal stage representation of man as a puppet, as well as
Futurists’ dreams about man-machine or Mejerchold´s Biomechanics resonates with
the developed vision of modern theatre. A New Theatre as an independent and fullyfledged
artistic medium, represented by Craig’s vision in which actors are replaced by
super-puppets, entirely controlled by the stage director: “An actor has to be removed
and at his place, will appear an unloving figure, super-puppet, as we will call it until it
will get better name.”[6] This theatre of objects utopia has its roots not only in an
aesthetics of symbolist theatre, but it leads far to the history, to the concept of
puppet, how we can meet with it in Romanticism and whose essence we can find in
Henry von Kleist´s essay Über das Marionettentheater (1810/11). His notion of
puppet is a kind of concentration of romantic philosophy generally. We can find in it
both fear from reason which if it is not “infinite”, only retards artistic performance
(because it takes its innocence, thus its geniality) as well as reflection of Rousseau´s
theory of original perfection of man that we could find already reflected in
mechanical androids as well).
Paul de Man in his essay Aesthetic formalisation: Kleist´s Über das
Marionettentheater (1984) [9] confronts Kleist’s text with Schillers’ concept of
humankind’s education by aesthetics and shows that in case of Kleist’s essay we deal
with embodiment of principles of aesthetical formalization: “Each puppet has a focal
point in movement, a center of gravity, and when this center is moved, the limbs
follow without additional handling. The limbs are pendula, echoing automatically the
movement of the center. Every time the center of gravity is guided in a straight line,
the limbs describe curves that complement and extend the basically simple
movement.”[27]
2.6 Robotic art: an anti-mimetic shift?
On the Bauhaus stage we could see abstract images of the human bodies reduced to
geometrical shapes that refer to an urge to depict an essence of man not in its
individual uniqueness, but in its general sense and universal validity. In the Bauhaus
case, we can still talk about these machine-like or puppet-like bodies as (generalizing)
mirrors of a man. However, the appearance of robotic art in the 1960’s is connected
with an anti-mimetic shift in the history of humanlike-machines. “The cybernetic
automaton’s mirroring of the human body was not established on the basis of
conventional mimicry, as in the case of androids and their internal parts, so much as
on a common understanding of the similarities that existed between the control
mechanisms and communicational organizations of machine systems and living
organisms.”[39] The anti-mimetic shift tends towards cancellation of borders
between field of art and reality (artifact and nature), between mimesis, representation
and life itself.7
We can derive, from three landmark works of robotic art from the 60ies, three
different aesthetical problems that have formed development and history of this field:
Robot K-456 (1964) by Name June Paik and Shuya Abe deals with a concept of a
remote control; Squat (1966) by Tom Shannon represents cybernetics entities and
The Senster (1969-1970) by Edwarda Ihnatowitcz is an instance of autonomous
behavior in art [25].
Contemporary robotic art brings a new aesthetic dimension that prefers modeling
of behavior to form (a representative and mimetic static object). In other words,
robotic art creates not only forms but as well actions and reactions of robot according
to outer or inner stimuli.
3 Staged Robots
The following discussion of staging robots is based on samples from the artistic work
of one of the author’s of this paper.8 These robotic installations and performances
investigate limits and degrees of anthropocentrism. By means of staging robots in a
typical human analogies and situations, these performances exploit the robots as
the medium of expression. In the works, examples of machines from the very
abstract mechanomorphic to the very representative zoomorphic shapes can be found.
3.1 Sign-body: weak Anthropomorphism
Kinetic art, physical artworks with the element of real-time, can be seen as a one of
the historical predecessors of robotic art as well as a broader interpretative context of
this field of art. Kinetic art is usually mechanomorphic and feeds on the continuous
transformation and participation of the viewer. The movement (or perceptible change
of state) of an object can be seen in part as its objective nature, while its perception
can be its subjective counterpart. Consequently, a rather abstract inert shape can
become, from an audience perspective, fluid, organic and eventually
anthropomorphic, solely by means of contextualization and movement
perception/reception.
7
Burnham described it as a history of both figurative sculpture according to mechanistic
automatons of 17th century and robotic sculptures (Cyborg art in his text). He concludes that:
“Suddenly, art history naturally assimilates history of life creation as well as an evolution of
machine.”[4]
8
Please refer to www.processing-plant.com for a comprehensive description of the robotic
works in this section.
Fig. 5 Untamed machine (La Cour des Miracles 1998)
For example, in Figure 5 the Untamed Machine is a simple motor mounted on
spring coils and this assemblage creates a rich range of chaotic and unpredictable
movements. Aligned with the anti-mimetic shift reported in the recent robotic art and
also with the swindle of the Chess player [36], the behavior is delivered without an
immense degree of computation (as in bottom-up AI [31, 5]).
Staging this object in a cage results on the viewers’ anthropomorphisation of its
nature by means of an interpretation of the whole situation as a captive untamed and
miserable entity in La Cour des Miracles [10,11,12]. The interpreted behavior
emanates out of the juxtaposition of this social mise-en-scène and the inherent “out of
control” motion of a complex dynamic and chaotic system in action.
Fig. 6 Organic cubes (Devolution 2006). Left: Neutral Position. Right: Unfolded and floating.
An equal approach was undertaken with the Organic cubes (Figure 6) in which
shapes were created by a set of discrete manipulators [37]. These geometries evoke
the Deus ex machina of the Greek theatre during the dance performance called
Devolution [10]. Beyond the aesthetics of the hypnotic organic movements of these
machines, audiences readily address the intent. The uncanny manifestation and
cognitive dissonance of these heavy and large floating objects do not push the viewer
to retract from the dialogue but rather induce a fascination to understand its stage
presence and character. In this scenario, the signs-design (squares, abstract, rigid, cold
metal) and the signs-action (fluid and soft, chaotic, organic quality) are in conflict. It
is distant to the androids of the Enlightenment era where signs-design (human body)
and signs-action (human gestures) are aligned: the goal being to achieve greater
mimesis. The weak anthropomorphism here is an advantage as it frees the sign from
the signified. Therefore, it enables a multiplicity of readings from a simple starting
shape: an array of cubes as an incarnation of super/non human elements/forces.
3.2 Sign-action: anthropopathy
To explore the acceptance of artificial behaviors, theatre can provide fictitious
environments to stimulate a suspension of disbelief. Stage performers share
similarities with the social robots and the puppets in that they both utilize gesture,
body and physical action to incarnate behaviors. Even without an anthropomorphic
body, the sign-action of the performing objects can nevertheless find foundations in
human acting methods to trigger empathic responses in the audience.
Fig. 7 A Walking Table (Shockheaded Peter 2000).
Acting methods may call for psycho-physical unity where behavior is inherently
physically grounded [21]. This unity finds a resonance in Kleist’s essay (1810/11)
when it comes to the mechanical performer. For instance, the Walking Table during
the junk opera Shockheaded Peter (Figure 7) manages to ambulate and properly
navigate even under an inflicted and deliberate handicapped gait. The behavior, a
tedious stumbling object desperately moving to its destination, is a collaboration of
the unstable equilibrium of the construction and the staging. The introduction of a
latent failure in the gait not only creates a poetic moment but also gives a
supplementary spark of life to the object. In a similar fashion, it is suggested to add
Perlin Noise for enhancing life likeliness of the social robots [15], an observation
already reported about the Musical Lady (refer to section 2.3).
Acting methods also propose that opposite stances as presence or absence can be
taken by actors even during single performance: The presence calls upon the
performer’s experience to dwell on his/her experience to deliver the character (and
refers rather to Performance art and quality of an authentic presence of theatrical
production). The absence requires an abnegation of the self to produce a pure
rendering of the directors’ directives and scripts (and refers in its ultimate form to
stage production as a re-presentation or sign system, a formal physical rendering of
play-writer’s text or director’s ideas).
Fig. 8 A begging machine - La Cour des Miracles (1998)
The Beggar of Figure 8 had neither experience of misery nor of being pitiable. Its
shape was a square box (symbol of a chest) that could rock over a hinge connoting the
body language of imploring. The beggar performer is rooted towards absence while
the table is ingrained in presence via the physicality of its gait.
Fig. 9 A machine under convulsion – La Cour des Miracles (1998)
In La Cour des Miracles, all the robotic performers are playing the role of
miserable machines (begging, convulsing, trapped, limping and crawling) using the
above-mentioned acting methods. The convulsive machine of Figure 9 is staggered on
the floor, helplessly shivering with spasms. The structure of this robot is derived in
such way that the actual mechanisms are under a supreme physical stress and tension.
This tension percolates into a perceived psychological stress, enhancing the psychophysical
unity of this machine. In fact the malfunctions are so carefully “planned” that
they become functional dysfunctional entities. Furthermore, these deviant machines
are shaped upon hypothetical functional machines, which never even existed. The
perceived behaviors manifested by these robotic agents are then neither real nor
strictly faked (as no evidence of robot pain has been proved) but yet they are
undoubtedly material and visible. They produce illusive behaviors created by our
tendency towards empathy and anthropopathy; models that implode within the
hyperreal staging of robotic characters.
3.3 Sign-design: mechanomorphism
Reflecting on Aristotle’s Politics and the analysis of what could be a robot body on
the theatre stage, The Colonies [10] are a series of performances and installations
where the robot shapes are solely derived from an assemblage of pre-existing
mechanism found in assembly lines and industrial manipulators/robots. The initial
intents of these robots shapes are purely functional and furthermore, these structures
are mostly unknown to the average audience. Thus, the sign-design of the machine is
not directly conveying nor commenting on any anthropomorphic entities. The
perceived behaviors of these shapes are then primarily rooted in the sign-actions
rather than the sign-design of their morphologies or representations (again as opposed
to the Androids of the mid 18th century).
Fig. 10 Flight simulation Platform Mechanism
Figure 10 shows the patent drawings of a simulation platform used as part of the
body of the robotic performers of Le Procès (Fig. 1). Utilizing existing mechanisms to
construct life-like objects brings us back to the paradox of the quasi-living objects of
the robot history (see section 2).
4 Ontologies disorder
The theatrical play of signs can happen owing to a “double” quality of the space - that
is physical (theatrical) stage and (dramatic) scene at the same time. Every-thing and
every-body that is brought on this double-space room is transformed into its doubleexistence.
It means itself and something else at the same time: man can mean thing
and thing can mean man. Actions can get their intrinsic philosophical sense, and
Hamlet’s hesitation (that can be seen as a kind of movement without effect) could be
felt as a dramatic action.
Two mentioned stances of dramatic art/acting - presence and absence (see section
3.3) - are usually parts of actors´ production dynamically altering each other – from
illusive re-presentation of the dramatic character to actors’ pure presence and action
in front of an audience and vice versa. The theatrical “play of signs” leaves open the
question if what we see on the stage is real/natural or artificial. As Denis Diderot
asked in his famous Paradoxe sur le comédien (Actor’s Paradox) [14]: Who is crying
on the stage? An actor or the character he re-presents? But does he/she only represent
the figure when he/she acts in front of us? This old question wasn’t answered yet. In
recent science-fiction as well as in R.U.R, robots are often playing their own roles,
anthropomorphized by human theatrical codes. So who is acting? The robot itself, its
robot-role character? Or the meta-robot? As in the case of examples from section 3,
mechanomorphic entities/copies do not represent any originals in “reality” but rather,
constitute their own hyper-reality.
What can happen with our understanding/interpretation of robot when it is placed
on the stage? We can say that “robot” is originally a dramatic character because it
appeared for the first time in a play (see K.Čapek). It was made to “function” on a
theatrical stage but then it has escaped its fictional existence and became real.
Machines have functioned in a field of art and theatre traditionally as re-presentations
and mirrors of human being (see androids above). Does this direction channel the
potential of the robot behaviors linking those solely to humanoids shapes and
activities? The bottom-up approaches in AI now strongly argue that the body shapes
the intelligence [31, 41]: recent researches on intelligent machine behaviors are based
upon robot morphologies that bear no direct resemblance to zoomorphic entities.
Inspired from the long history of puppetry, we argue that the robotic performer, as a
stage character embraced with the act of suspension of disbelief from the audience,
can potentially take any shape and form. (See examples of section 3)
We could associate Baudrillard’s [3] symbolic orders with the degrees or stages of
anthropomorphisation of the machine: it is the reflection of a basic reality, it masks
and perverts a basic reality, it marks the absence of a basic reality and finally, it bares
no relation to reality whatsoever. The first three call upon anthropomorphic
incarnations of the robot while the last is pure simulacra. The Puppet, as Tellis
argues, leads the audience to ultimately grapple with matters of being and ontology.
The Puppet-Stage and the world-stage both present figures where we have to
comprehend and arbitrate on the nature of being.
These artistic explorations of robotic performances and robots as performers/actors
(see section 3) fuel themselves in the growing blurred division between the man and
the machine and demonstrate the paradox of artificial life - stuck between the real and
the artificial, the flesh and the metal, the sign and the signified. The
anthropomorphisation of the robot suffers from Multiple Ontologies Disorder, a highlevel
manifestation of human-robot schizophrenia [12]. Since the principal of artificial
reproduction favors the human form and the human existence as construct, is
anthropocentrism at the center of this disorder.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the producers of the several robotic performances: Canada
Arts Council. The Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, Montreal Contemporary
Arts Museum, Ex-Machina, DFAIT Canada, Ars Electronica, Australian Dance
Theatre, The Australian Council. The research presented in this paper is partly
supported by grant No. LC544 “Research on technology functions in a process of Art
work creation and production” (Cultural Ministry of Czech Republic).
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