OBOT TUDES
energy/robot etudes:
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Robot Etudes
Annenberg Center Harold Prince Theater
15 May 2010
Mechatronic devices interacting with actors on stage at the Pig Iron Theatre Company elicit expressive forms of relationship—this is far from a forbidding
destiny once imagined in science fiction between robotics and humans. Seemingly disparate, oddly complementary, the Robot Etudes struck a treaty of methods and
The Robot Etudes was the product of three discrete traditions—architecture, engineering, and theater—in the understanding that the collaboration as a whole would be greater than the overlap of its parts. Professors Mark Yim from Modular Robotics and Simon Kim from PennDesign, with the Pig Iron Theater Company, took one semester to deliver an experimental approach to the forest depicted within Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Working with students from both disciplines, and the actors and production crew, various robotic prototypes and networked machines were designed to perform and engage human actors in an integrated, reactive environment. The Robot Etudes played to a full audience in the spring of 2010 at the Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center for Performing Arts. —Simon Kim
The Robot Etudes offered a surprising glimpse into the interaction between men and machines. The teams of robotic inventions developed by teams of architecture and engineering students became equal participants in the re-representation of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Among the most delightful scenes were between human and robot actors, with the sometimes peculiar and sometimes subtle gestures of the robots leading both to remarkable interactions and hilarious misunderstandings. I was there with a nine year old, who was captivated by a set of giant, artificial wings that responded to the least variation in the breathing of the actor who wore them, and became wholly organic extensions. —Dr. William W. Braham, MArch ’95, PhD’04
practice, among disciplines classic and futuristic, to deliver the most unexpected twist of them all—a wonder of possibilities.
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