MML: Alloyed Bodies [BNE-3-3-1]
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Alloyed Bodies [BNE-3-3-1] is an improvisational performance installation that intertwines creative robotics, dance performance, and more-than-human dramaturgy. The Machine Movement Lab both demystifies and reenchants machinelike entities, challenging our relationships with robots. It envisions a more horizontal playground for human-machine encounters, questioning the dominant politics that shape our socio-technical visions and restrict both bodies and machines to roles of mimicry and servitude. The project seeks to push the boundaries of dance and technology by creating a more-than-human playground for collaborative creation with human and nonhuman performers. Through a deeply integrative process, dance knowledge informs robotic design, while robotic capabilities shape choreography. This reciprocal relationship forges a unique artistic language that challenges traditional hierarchies in socio-technical practices. Premiering at ISEA 2024, Alloyed Bodies [BNE-3-3-1] expands on our earlier works, Dancing with the Nonhuman [VIE-2-2-1] and [SYD-2-2-1]. It features four dance performers, three cube costumes, and one cube robot performer. The piece delves into the potential of being more-than-human: how we resonate with the world, how everything is entangled, and how differences exist only in relation. The performance unfolds in a whimsical cube world where dancers and cube artefacts mingle and form more-than-human alliances. In this evolving playground, bodies and things transform, becoming hybrid and tentacular. A dynamic soundscape serves as another nonhuman performer, enveloping and responding to the shifting interplay. 
 
In its final act, audiences are invited to join the performance, mingling with human and nonhuman performers to explore this playful entanglement from within.
This project is partially supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [AR 545] and the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (ARC) [FT190100567 and DP160104706]. |