Start Date: June 2022
End Date: December 2022
Overview
The ARM Hub (and Australian Cobotics Centre) hosted Dr Steph Hutchinson through an Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) Residency in the second half of 2022.
ANAT’s prestigious flagship program has supported creative research collaborations between more than 100 artists and scientists, since it was established in 2004.
ANAT Synapse involves Australian science organisations hosting artists in residence, leading to profound artistic and professional development for the participants, while also building a sustainable support base for interdisciplinary creative collaboration in Australia.
The Project entitled, Cobotic Improvisations, drew on dance improvisation and choreographic methodologies to research how humans might predict the movement of their robot collaborators. The project embodied practice methods and viewing human-robot collaboration through a new lens – choreographic, improvisation and embodied practice. The capacity of choreographic and dance improvisational methods enabled Steph to quickly prototype and perform different scenarios. And, the sensitivity of the dancer to read the relationships within the environment informed interaction and test the thresholds of comfortability of both humans and robots in close collaborative environments. Steph’s work helped the fundamental research in how humans can predict how a robot is about to move, which is a very under investigated issue in robotics. The project is closely linked to the Centre’s Human-Robot Interaction program.
The performance (see below) is the final outcome of the project and was presented at the launch event for the Australian Cobotics Centre. Collaborators include: Jonathan Roberts, Dasun Gunasinghe and Marisa Bucolo.
Follow the projects progress via Steph’s website: https://www.stephhutchison.com