TIME TO COMPILE
Catie became Artist-in-Residence at her Robotics, Automation, and Dance (RAD) Lab in 2017 at the invitation of lab director and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Amy LaViers. Catie, Amy, graduate student Ishaan Pakrasi, and the RAD Lab’s collaboration has resulted in an artistic work-in-progress, currently titled Time to Compile , as well as research on human robot interaction and entrepreneurial exploration regarding affective, expressive modifications to robots. Catie then became a Research Technician in the RAD Lab as a result of this collaboration.
We live in a world where people exist side by side even when separated by 1000s of miles and a time when data of human individuals is constantly being captured, influencing later unanticipated situations with unknown agents. Today there are more devices than humans connected to the internet. “Time to Compile” (as an artistic piece) is an embodied analog for this Internet of Things where audience members can make sense of this new “place” and this “time”.
The mood of the piece is distant and remote yet sparkly and intriguing. Soft elements like sheets, sex, and skin are used to contrast the hard lines of robots, virtual avatars, and transistors. Active, mobile lighting elements cast shadows of both human and robot performers, delineating another world on stage.
Catie created the narrative, structure, and overall design of the piece. The various robots' movement sequences, dialogue, and responsive patterns were programmed in Choreographe and MATLAB/ROS. There are dialogues, videos, and choreographies for humans in Time to Compile.
Publications resulting from this work are linked below.
International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) paper: Perception of Control in Artificial and Human Systems: A Study of Embodied Performance Interactions
International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) paper: CURTAIN and Time to Compile: A Demonstration of an Experimental Testbed for Human-Robot Interaction
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Robots & Art Forum paper: Time to Compile: Compliance Between Artistic Inquiry and Research Questions
MDPI Journal paper: Choreographic and Somatic Methods for the Development of Expressive Robotic Systems
Biennial Symposium Conference paper: Time to Compile: An Interactive Art Installation