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PARIP 2005

International Conference | 29 June - 03 July 2005

Popat: Sita | UK

Performance Robotics Research Group

Members:

Professor Mick Wallis & Dr. Sita Popat (University of Leeds)

Dr. Melissa Trimingham (University of Kent)

Dr. Gordon Ramsay (Loughborough University)

Richard Greenhill & Rich Walker (Shadow Robots)

Performance Robotics: Iterative Cycles of Knowledge Development

The Performance Robotics Research Group consists of four researchers from University of Leeds, University of Kent and Loughborough University, specialising in drama, dance, puppetry and performance theory. We are collaborating with robotics engineers from Shadow Robots Company Ltd in London. Our project asks questions about the relationship between robots and people. The research questions and outcomes include new performance vocabularies raised by interaction with the robot as a non-human and 'semi-intelligent' agency and the qualities in robotic design that make robots more approachable and desirable in the home environment.  All of us are concerned with combating the conventional, functional, 'clunky' stereotype, and looking at ways to develop 'anti-clunk' robots with which humans can connect.

Our research further aims to develop understandings of research processes, informing performance practice and theory, artificial intelligence research and robotics design. We are engaged with iterative research cycles at multiple levels, addressing methodologies and knowledge thereof rather than epistemological and ontological concerns - although these must figure because of the ways that we will be required to present our research to funding bodies. We are currently disseminating this knowledge through seminar presentations such as the one that we will be presenting at the PARIP 2005 conference, and through traditional journal publications. We are simultaneously supporting the iteration of this model into other research practices and projects within our Schools. This implicitly involves knowledge transfer at the level of meta-research. Thus we are attuned to research productivity both at the level of local flow and as the objectified and widely disseminable product. We hope to contribute to a perspective that respects and rewards both ends of this seeming spectrum. Given that the work integrates with the fields of mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence and the robotics industry, perspectives on soft economics as well as knowledge flows become pertinent at another meta-level. To this extent the work must entail genealogical questions about higher education research impact, evaluation and reward.

Our presentation will consist of a framework addressing the overarching research questions, within which will be included two mini-workshops considering more specific elements. It will involve participation and engagement with robots and performers, and with robotics engineers and performance researchers. The ‘movement and robotics’ workshop will include exercises that explore human embodiment of robotic movement and its impact on the development of robotic design principles. Our research demonstrates how human movement can inform complex robotic design issues, and how robotic embodiment can extend the human performer’s movement vocabulary. The ‘robotic object theatre’ event will include work with, for example, a robotic basket that uses ‘air-muscle’ technology to control objects in dramatic contexts and to realise their implicit expressivity.

Institutional contact details:

Dr. Sita Popat

School of Performance and Cultural Industries

University of Leeds

Bretton Hall campus

West Bretton

Wakefield,

West Yorkshire

WF4 4LG

Tel: 0113 343 9196

Email: s.popat@leeds.ac.uk

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


    
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