Personal Life of an Electronic Object
What if a robot had a personal life, a hobby, or a routine that people can’t understand?
Paper Cutter
Let's say here's a vacuum cleaner. By day, it's a useful tool for people, and by night it is an obsessive paper cutter? By the speed of motion and scale of the paper, it definitely seems like “work” than “fun” which is interesting because the viewer can easily empathize with it. It does seem like the robot-version of Charlie’s dad, the toothpaste-top-putter from the “Chocolate Factory.” At least that’s my story.
I want to keep this minimal use of anamorphic behavior to cause empathetic stir along with a little bit of mystery. What if there were to be a version where maybe three of these little robots are working together…making mistakes, but definitely obsessed with getting this odd job done. I do want to add an element of interaction with other forms of life though…maybe it responds to us? light? wind? moonlight? It could be fun if it was like a werewolf, turning into something out of the ordinary at its own ritualistic time.
What if a robot had a personal life, a hobby, or a routine that people can't understand?
Paper Cutter Ver. 2
Paper Cutter Ver. 2 is an in-context version of "Paper Cutter," an experiment I did as part of the "Personal Life of an Electronic Object" series.
The original experiment, "Paper Cutter," was supposed to illustrate just the hobby part of a familiar electronic object. What could they do when we're not around? In the case of this vacuum cleaner, it is obsessively cutting paper. To the best of its ability.
The project adresses a couple of key points.
- The concept of a "personified" and "autonomous" electronic object: This machine looks like it is "alive" or "trying to act like it is alive". The idea of "consciousness," seen through its willful act of cutting, and "awareness," felt through it recognizing the presence and absence of a person enables us to perceive the object as "alive." It may not have actual consciousness but it does in the mind of the viewer as much as a pair of shoes might seem like a "couple that is born to be together."
- The concept of "work" vs "play": When a person is "working," he is being productive, or doing a job for a purposeful outcome; on the other hand, when he is "playing," he is generally doing an activity that is not necessarily productive, but more meaningful in a personal way. This vacuum cleaner, too, has a productive "working" routine which is done when a person uses it for cleaning. Once the owner is done with the vacuum cleaner, it will have a significant amount of "down-time," which in terms of the lives of people, would be considered as "time to rest" or "play".
- The concept of "imperfection" of a seemingly alive being: The video illustrates a vacuum cleaner that is cutting paper to the best of its ability; it has a couple of "flaws." It is not "smart" enough to fix it when the paper goes off track. It can not fix itself when the paper rips or the blade falls out. It can not go out and buy more paper to fulfill its needs. It has to be treated like a pet of a person. It has to be fixed, cleaned, and taken care of by its owner. This is similar to having to charge a cellphone, give water to plants, and wash a pet. Does this vacuum cleaner seem more "humane" for its flaws and obsessive personality?
Stringer
I’ve been wanting to make an electronic being to illustrate an amicable relationship with something other than people during their “down-time.” Since my “Paper Cutter,” I’ve been wondering if I could make another demo using more than one servo in an interesting way. What are the relationships between these two servos? Do they look like one entity or two? I’m still imagining these functions to be a secondary feature of a functional and practical piece of electronic. This would only be, let’s say a cassette player and a blender, or two spindles on a sewing machine who are maybe doing work or enjoying a hobby together.
I can’t help but to think that the first two attempts, where the system malfunctioned, seem more interesting than the latter… although I did find it interesting that the “amicable” relationship between the pink stringer and green stringer evolved to a competitive one. I found it interesting that the green gave up turning until the pink was done because it got knotted up with the other. I feel like the very pre-planned, mechanic system showed some mistakes, yields, and “imperfections” which made the process seem more humanistic.
Balloon Player
This is a machine that illustrates the personal life of a surveillance camera. When there are people around, it is doing its job, recording people but when there's no one around it is watching a jellyfish in a tank (perhaps a pet of his own) and playing with its balloons. The more active the jellyfish is, the more active the balloons will move.
First of all, through these three projects, I suggest the line between “play” and “labor”. I think this is a little more obvious with “Balloon Play” just because balloons already embodies a strong connotation of playfulness. I think there's no question that the balloons seem like it is being “played with” but do the machines seem like they’re having fun or working? I’m wondering if the balloon to machine ratio, the servo’s speed, and the video the machine is “watching” helps this? I think in order to show a stronger feeling of a machine “playing,” I could try to make the balloons smaller than the machine.
The perspective of the machine(s) is something I wanted to comment on with this experiment. I’m suggesting that a machine can watch a pet(or video, if that makes it more interesting), a machine can process what it’s seeing, a machine is able to play with, and affect other things in the world. Maybe rather than “work” or “play,” the balloons just show its state of mind? We could definitely see all this in the expressions of a person.
I also want to comment on what people may see in this, for all its metaphors have meaning if and only if people look at it. I’m pulling in ideas such as “why do we like watching/owning pets?” The machine is watching a live animal in a tank. This activity may seem boring, meaningless, unreasonable but hey, we do it too. We even pay to go to aquariums. Why do we even stare at pets anyways? Also, balloons. We don’t do anything much with them. We don’t play games, talk to them or much more than use them for decoration. But there’s a definite fascination for balloons. We love just having them floating around. Maybe we see them as pets? maybe we just envy that they can float? maybe it’s their fragility, flexibility, or ability to quantify air? The machine “plays” the balloons so that the 16 balloons would create a mass that is constantly changing, supporting their ability to make mass out of thin air. in that case, does watching a jellyfish in a tank not make much sense? All these are questions a person would ask by watching the balloons, reflecting on the behavior of the machine.
Paper Cutter
Let's say here's a vacuum cleaner. By day, it's a useful tool for people, and by night it is an obsessive paper cutter? By the speed of motion and scale of the paper, it definitely seems like “work” than “fun” which is interesting because the viewer can easily empathize with it. It does seem like the robot-version of Charlie’s dad, the toothpaste-top-putter from the “Chocolate Factory.” At least that’s my story.
I want to keep this minimal use of anamorphic behavior to cause empathetic stir along with a little bit of mystery. What if there were to be a version where maybe three of these little robots are working together…making mistakes, but definitely obsessed with getting this odd job done. I do want to add an element of interaction with other forms of life though…maybe it responds to us? light? wind? moonlight? It could be fun if it was like a werewolf, turning into something out of the ordinary at its own ritualistic time.
What if a robot had a personal life, a hobby, or a routine that people can't understand?
Paper Cutter Ver. 2
Paper Cutter Ver. 2 is an in-context version of "Paper Cutter," an experiment I did as part of the "Personal Life of an Electronic Object" series.
The original experiment, "Paper Cutter," was supposed to illustrate just the hobby part of a familiar electronic object. What could they do when we're not around? In the case of this vacuum cleaner, it is obsessively cutting paper. To the best of its ability.
The project adresses a couple of key points.
- The concept of a "personified" and "autonomous" electronic object: This machine looks like it is "alive" or "trying to act like it is alive". The idea of "consciousness," seen through its willful act of cutting, and "awareness," felt through it recognizing the presence and absence of a person enables us to perceive the object as "alive." It may not have actual consciousness but it does in the mind of the viewer as much as a pair of shoes might seem like a "couple that is born to be together."
- The concept of "work" vs "play": When a person is "working," he is being productive, or doing a job for a purposeful outcome; on the other hand, when he is "playing," he is generally doing an activity that is not necessarily productive, but more meaningful in a personal way. This vacuum cleaner, too, has a productive "working" routine which is done when a person uses it for cleaning. Once the owner is done with the vacuum cleaner, it will have a significant amount of "down-time," which in terms of the lives of people, would be considered as "time to rest" or "play".
- The concept of "imperfection" of a seemingly alive being: The video illustrates a vacuum cleaner that is cutting paper to the best of its ability; it has a couple of "flaws." It is not "smart" enough to fix it when the paper goes off track. It can not fix itself when the paper rips or the blade falls out. It can not go out and buy more paper to fulfill its needs. It has to be treated like a pet of a person. It has to be fixed, cleaned, and taken care of by its owner. This is similar to having to charge a cellphone, give water to plants, and wash a pet. Does this vacuum cleaner seem more "humane" for its flaws and obsessive personality?
Stringer
I’ve been wanting to make an electronic being to illustrate an amicable relationship with something other than people during their “down-time.” Since my “Paper Cutter,” I’ve been wondering if I could make another demo using more than one servo in an interesting way. What are the relationships between these two servos? Do they look like one entity or two? I’m still imagining these functions to be a secondary feature of a functional and practical piece of electronic. This would only be, let’s say a cassette player and a blender, or two spindles on a sewing machine who are maybe doing work or enjoying a hobby together.
I can’t help but to think that the first two attempts, where the system malfunctioned, seem more interesting than the latter… although I did find it interesting that the “amicable” relationship between the pink stringer and green stringer evolved to a competitive one. I found it interesting that the green gave up turning until the pink was done because it got knotted up with the other. I feel like the very pre-planned, mechanic system showed some mistakes, yields, and “imperfections” which made the process seem more humanistic.
Balloon Player
This is a machine that illustrates the personal life of a surveillance camera. When there are people around, it is doing its job, recording people but when there's no one around it is watching a jellyfish in a tank (perhaps a pet of his own) and playing with its balloons. The more active the jellyfish is, the more active the balloons will move.
First of all, through these three projects, I suggest the line between “play” and “labor”. I think this is a little more obvious with “Balloon Play” just because balloons already embodies a strong connotation of playfulness. I think there's no question that the balloons seem like it is being “played with” but do the machines seem like they’re having fun or working? I’m wondering if the balloon to machine ratio, the servo’s speed, and the video the machine is “watching” helps this? I think in order to show a stronger feeling of a machine “playing,” I could try to make the balloons smaller than the machine.
The perspective of the machine(s) is something I wanted to comment on with this experiment. I’m suggesting that a machine can watch a pet(or video, if that makes it more interesting), a machine can process what it’s seeing, a machine is able to play with, and affect other things in the world. Maybe rather than “work” or “play,” the balloons just show its state of mind? We could definitely see all this in the expressions of a person.
I also want to comment on what people may see in this, for all its metaphors have meaning if and only if people look at it. I’m pulling in ideas such as “why do we like watching/owning pets?” The machine is watching a live animal in a tank. This activity may seem boring, meaningless, unreasonable but hey, we do it too. We even pay to go to aquariums. Why do we even stare at pets anyways? Also, balloons. We don’t do anything much with them. We don’t play games, talk to them or much more than use them for decoration. But there’s a definite fascination for balloons. We love just having them floating around. Maybe we see them as pets? maybe we just envy that they can float? maybe it’s their fragility, flexibility, or ability to quantify air? The machine “plays” the balloons so that the 16 balloons would create a mass that is constantly changing, supporting their ability to make mass out of thin air. in that case, does watching a jellyfish in a tank not make much sense? All these are questions a person would ask by watching the balloons, reflecting on the behavior of the machine.