Machine Movement Labs: a crossdisciplinary investigation into the performative potential of machines.

Support Material

Please find below three videos documenting previous works related to this application.

The large-scale robotic installation Accomplice by Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders embeds a group of autonomous robots into the architectural fabric of a gallery. The work expands the co-evolution of human and machine into our social spaces, making tangible how machines shape and become part of our social fabric.

Relevance to proposal: The work’s abstract machinic protagonists communicate their curious disposition through movement and rhythmic knocking signals. The encounter between human and non-human agents in Accomplice is reminiscent of those we have in a zoo.

On Track is a performative assemblage involving a mechanical mop, a troupe of robotic brushes and spilling viscous fluids. The work employed an assemblage of machinic agents to parody human endeavour, with its overly complicated mechanisms and procedures. A collaboration between Linda Dement,Petra Gemeinboeck, Brigitte Prinzgau and Marion Tränkle.

Relevance to proposal: The machinic actors in On Track perform a hiccupping choreography, consisting of different movement patterns, rhythms, and speeds.

Uzume by Petra Gemeinboeck is a virtual environment that immerses participants in a three-dimensional, human-scale data space. Immersed in Uzume, an abstract, dynamic and sensitively responsive environment surrounds the visitor. Programmer: Roland Blach, composer: Nicolaj Kirisits.

Relevance to proposal: In Uzume, participants co-performed with the abstract, virtual entity through movement and gesture.

Memory by Petra Gemeinboeck explores the elasticity of memory, seeking alternative modes of representation; always slippery, indeterminate and incomplete.

Relevance to proposal: Performers were invited to create unusual events that would later seep back into the gallery as memories to encourage other visitors to ‘perform’ for the work.