Presentation of Self In Machine Life

Human-machine dance in a technology-mediated performance space.

The world is connected by long distance interactions, dividing those working in multiple regions despite interactive technology. To show how humans and nonhuman entities may communicate together in interactive performance, we created an art technology performance exchange between New York Hall of Science (NYSCI, The Brick Theater) and Studio for Narrative Spaces. To bridge the 12 hour divide, we enabled a morning performance in New York presented by reknowned dancer Mizuho Kappa and choregraphed by RAY LC, which is simultaneously streamed live in the evening at the School of Creative Media, where a robot arm enacts the movements undertaken by Mizuho. The live stream from Hong Kong is also shared with New York, enabling Mizuho and RAY to interactively alter the dance movements and choreography live through visual comparison with the robot, which imitates her head using its hand and her body using its arm.

The choreography follows Mizuho as she steps outside the digital realm of the virtual platform and into the physical stage, enticing the robot to dance with her. The robot starts with only block-like movements but eventually learns to mimic her with his body. Still he cannot run around or use hands like Mizuho, and eventually seeks the audience for help. Soon Mizuho begins performing actions that the arm is not capable of, such as jumping and lying flat on the ground, leading the robot to wonder on his own: is there also something I can do that the human cannot?

Inspired by this performance, we next probed dancer-machine interactions to understand insights and challenges for performers when physically manipulable technologies are introduced into the creative process. We created a performative intervention involving a group of dancers working with the same robot arm. To understand how dancers design and improvise movements while working with instruments capable of non-humanoid movements, we engaged dancers in workshops to co-create movements with a robot arm in one-human-to-one-robot and three-human-to-one-robot settings. We found that dancers produced more fluid movements in one-to-one scenarios, experiencing a stronger sense of connection and presence with the robot as a co-dancer. In three-to-one scenarios, the dancers divided their attention between the human dancers and the robot, resulting in increased perceived use of space and more stop-and-go movements, perceiving the robot as part of the stage background. This work highlights how technologies can drive creativity in movement artists adapting to new ways of working with physical instruments, contributing design insights supporting artistic collaborations with non-humanoid agents.

Performance as part of : IEEE VISAP.
2023 Paper "Contradiction pushes me to improve": Proceedings of ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW'23).
2025 Paper "A Constructed Response": Proceedings of ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW'25), arxiv.