Robotic theatre: comparative analysis of human and mechanized activities in the creative process
Abstract
The article systematizes and analyzes the existing experience of organizing the creative process in a robotic theater. The author explores the robotic theater phenomenon, the artificial intelligence technology possibilities to function in the stage space. The article provides a comparative analysis of human and mechanized interaction in the stage space. The methodological basis of the research is a combination of several methods: analytical – for accounting for historical and fictional literature; theoretical and conceptual method – for analyzing the conceptual and terminological system of research and identifying the specifics of introducing the artificial intelligence technology in creative process; comparative-typological – to compare the peculiarities of the functioning of mechanized “actors” with the acting skills of human performers. The article explores the threat perception and uncanny valley concepts to study the perception of a robot–actor by an audience. The author examines the process of human interaction with a robotic body: from the moment of interest, interaction to the moment of rejection of the robot by a person (audience).
Keyword : actor, artificial intelligence, creativity, digital technology, robot, theater
How to Cite
Sovhyra, T. (2021). Robotic theatre: comparative analysis of human and mechanized activities in the creative process. Creativity Studies, 14(2), 295-306. https://doi.org/10.3846/cs.2021.13545
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
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Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books.
Bruce, A., Knight, J., Listopad, S., Magerko, B., & Nourbakhsh, I. R. (2000, 24–28 April). Robot improv: using drama to create believable agents. In Proceedings 2000 ICRA, Millennium Conference. International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065) (pp. 4002–4008). San Francisco, California, United States. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Burleigh, T. J., Schoenherr, J. R., & Lacroix, G. L. (2013). Does the uncanny valley exist? An empirical test of the relationship between eeriness and the human likeness of digitally created faces. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 759–771. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.11.021
Colton, S., & Wiggins, G. A. (2012, 27–31 August). Computational creativity: the final frontier? In L. De Raedt, Ch. Bessiere, D. Dubois, P. Doherty, & P. Frasconi (Eds.), ECAI’12: Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (pp. 21–26). Montpellier, France. IOS Press.
Ferrari, F., Paladino, M. P., & Jetten, J. (2016). Blurring human–machine distinctions: anthropomorphic appearance in social robots as a threat to human distinctiveness. International Journal of Social Robotics, 8, 287–302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-016-0338-y
Fishwick, P. A. (Ed.). (2006). Aesthetic computing. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1135.001.0001
Haddadin, S. (2014). Springer tracts in advanced robotics ’90. Towards safe robots: approaching Asimov’s 1st Law. Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40308-8
Kang, M. (2001). The use of dreaming for the study of history. Rethinking History, 5(2), 275–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642520110052657
Kaplan, F. (2004). Who is afraid of the humanoid? Investigating cultural differences in the acceptance of robots. International Journal of Humanoid Robotics, 1(3), 465–480. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219843604000289
Knight, H. (2011, November). Eight lessons learned about non-verbal interactions through robot theater. In B. Mutlu, Ch. Bartneck, J. Ham, V. Evers, & T. Kanda (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science: Vol. 7072. Proceedings of Social Robotics: Third International Conference, ICSR (pp. 42–51). Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25504-5_5
Kreutzer, R. T., & Sirrenberg, M. (2020). Management for professionals. Understanding Artificial Intelligence: fundamentals, use cases and methods for a corporate AI journey. Springer Nature Switzerland AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25271-7
Legierska, A. (2014). The rise of robotic theatre. In Culture.pl. https://culture.pl/en/article/the-rise-ofrobotic-theatre
Lem, S. (1992). Mortal engines. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
Lem, S. (1974). Prince Ferrix and the Princess Crystal. In The Cyberiad (pp. 283–295). Book/Harcourt, Inc.
MacDorman, K. F., & Chattopadhyay, D. (2017). Categorization-based stranger avoidance does not explain the uncanny valley effect. Cognition, 161, 132–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.009
MacDorman, K. F., & Chattopadhyay, D. (2016). Reducing consistency in human realism increases the uncanny valley effect; increasing category uncertainty does not. Cognition, 146, 190–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.09.019
MacDorman, K. F., & Ishiguro, H. (2006). The uncanny advantage of using androids in cognitive and social science research. Interaction Studies, 7(3), 297–337. https://doi.org/10.1075/is.7.3.03mac
McIlvaine Parsons, H., & Kearsley, G. P. (1982). Robotics and human factors: current status and future prospects. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 24(5), 535–552. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872088202400504
Mori, M. (2012). The uncanny valley. In Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Robotics and Automation Magazine, 19(2), 98–100. https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2012.2192811
Myounghoon, J. (2017). Robotic arts: current practices, potentials, and implications. Multimodal Technologies and Interact, 1(5). https://doi.org/10.3390/mti1020005
Nishiguchi, Sh., Ogawa, K., Yoshikawa, Y., Chikaraishi, T., Hirata, O., & Ishiguro, H. (2017). Theatrical approach: designing human-like behaviour in humanoid robots. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 89, 158–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2016.11.017
Ogawa, K., Taura, K., & Ishiguro, H. (2012, 9–13 September). Possibilities of androids as poetry-reciting agent. In Proceedings of 2012 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers RO-MAN: The 21st Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (pp. 565–570). Paris, France. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2012.6343811
Oracle; Workplace Intelligence. (2020). As uncertainty remains, anxiety and stress reach a tipping point at work: artificial intelligence fills the gaps in workplace mental health support. Al@Work Study 2020. https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/oracle-hcm-ai-at-work.pdf
Ortenzi, V., Controzzi, M., Cini, F., Leitner, J., Bianchi, M., Roa, M. A., & Corke, P. (2019). Robotic manipulation and the role of the task in the metric of success. Nature Machine Intelligence, 1, 340–346. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0078-4
Paré, Z. (2015). Robot actors: theatre for robot engineering. In Ehwa Institute for Humanities Science and LABEX Arts-H2H Laboratory (Eds.), Theatres du Posthumain (pp. 143–162). Arcarnet.
Poulton, M. C. (Ed.). (2019). Oriza Hirata: Citizens of Tokyo: Six Plays. Seagull Books.
Reeve, J. (2009). Understanding motivation and emotion. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Reichardt, J. (1978). Robots: fact, fiction, and prediction. Penguin Books.
Rhodes, G., & Zebrowitz, L. A. (Eds.). (2002). Facial attractiveness: evolutionary, cognitive, and social perspectives. In G. Rhodes (Series Ed.), Advances in visual cognition. Ablex.
Rimini Protokoll. (2020). Uncanny valley by Stefan Kaegi. https://www.rimini-protokoll.de/website/en/project/unheimliches-tal-uncanny-valley
Rond, J., Sanchez, A., Berger, J., & Knight, H. (2019, 14–18 October). Improv with robots: creativity, inspiration, co-performance. In Proceedings of 2019 28th Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN). New Delhi, India. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8956410&casa_token=_NL0fNWHDX0AAAAA:Rk34broP7pPHH7IdD2CGDtl-22XPNIe10yzy2KK0tPMKoKmjEUK47W9CxuqC4lFTza5HJ9Tze_15
Sone, Y. (2012). Double acts: human-robot performance in Japan’s Bacarobo Theatre. In G. Arrighi & V. Emeljanow (Eds.), A world of popular entertainments: an edited volume of critical essays. Cambridge Scholars.
Sovhyra, T. (2020). AI technology and biological research use in cultural practices. International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering, 9(4), 126–130. https://doi.org/10.35940/ijrte.D4880.119420
Tinwell, A. (2015). The uncanny valley in games and animation. A K Peters/CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/b17830
Tinwell, A., Grimshaw, M., & Williams, A. (2011). The uncanny wall. International Journal of Arts and Technology, 4(3), 326–341. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJART.2011.041485
Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books.