EID111: Design, Illusion and Reality
Equally Avatar: Humans, Machines and Virtual Beings
Developing Robotic Actors And Original Theatrical Scenarios
Based On Texts By Charles Darwin, Geoffrey Chaucer, Nikola Tesla,
William Shakespeare And/Or OthersFall 2000 semester: Mondays, 2-5 PM, 3 credits
Contact: Professor Jean Lemée
Chairman, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Phone 212.353.4295
Email: lemee@cooper.eduInstructors: Dr. Carl Weiman and Adrianne Wortzel
There is a new laboratory of drama emerging in the world between man, machine and virtual being.
Sayonara Diorama, Adrianne Wortzel: Pandora, Mr. Panotti, Mr. Sciapod Sayonara Diorama, Adrianne Wortzel: Darwin, the Mappa Mundi Monstrous Races, Pandora and the Questress As humans, new technologies make our paths (links) and locations (nodes) apparent to everyone. If we are perpetually subject to being seen, will we conjure up an ever-present mirror located nearby in every direction in order to check out our appearances? Will this evolve us into a more self-conscious species? Will it render us actors? Will it render the world as a global amphitheater where the border between natural occurrences and deliberate portrayals of events has dissolved? What will happen to the modernist lines separating performer from audience?
It is a new wilderness experience to envision what combinations will take place between man, machine and virtual being and what new things or conditions they will produce. Although we may not be able to predict all the paths of juxtaposition, mirroring, combination, provocation, association, randomness, and superimposition, we can elucidate ourselves and others by depicting and enacting them in theatrical arenas.
This is a collaborative projects course for students of art, architecture and engineering. Students will work with pre-existing state-of-the-art robots which are resident at Cooper Union to create theater in the emerging frontier between man and devices. Existing robots have speech as well as speech recognition, color recognition, sonar navigation, and video streaming capabilities. Students will research and develop their own scenarios as teams, complete with written scripts, lighting, costume and scenic design.
Sayonara Diorama, Adrianne Wortzel: Mr. Blemye and the White Robot Sayonara Diorama, Adrianne Wortzel: Darwin, The Ship's Detective, Pandora and the Mappa Mundi Monstrous Races Projects will be geared for production via a telerobotic web site – which functions as an on-line theater space for robots as actors and is manipulated by remote visitors to the web site. Projects will occupy a real, physical space at the Cooper Union where the repertory company of robot actors will "live" and perform. This space will function as the laboratory and theater for the class.
All photos on this page by José A. Betancourt