At some point in this and the next month I hope to reconnect with ideas of communication theory using examples of human-robot communication as illustrations, but I haven’t managed yet.  Meanwhile, I am teaching in an upper level Communication Studies unit and enjoying pretty much every minute of that.  It’s possible that some of my students may drop by the blog this week or next, so I thought I owed them a more recent post.

What bits of information could I share here which have some bearing on the tutorials for next week?

• My favourite theory uses stories as illustrations, almost all theorists in which I am interested and whose ideas I quote do this
• John Durham Peters is someone I cite a lot (and he’s quoted in the reading for this week)
• My life choices and the work I have done can be linked back to stories I have heard that have captured my imagination, from school, through my first degree, at work, in moving to Australia and in my research and teaching

Back to robots soon, yes, I really will get back to the robots… one day…

Not an academic analysis, but I feel probably the most likely result!

I had originally planned to visit Guy Hoffman, designer and builder of AUR the robotic lighting assistant, but unfortunately he ended up being out of the country when I was there (some people will go to any lengths to avoid meeting with me)!   However, Mikey Siegel kindly agreed to talk to me about his work, and to show me around the Media Lab.

It was an interesting tour, and the lab is just as cluttered with boxes and wires as any other I’ve visited.  The only difference in the Personal Robotics section is the large number of cuddly toys that are strewn about the place.  I should have asked if I could take some photos, but for some reason felt a bit awkward about this, as if they were bound to say no.  I did, however, take some in the museum, just so that I could prove I had “met” Kismet and Cog.

I also spent some time just walking around MIT:

Then I headed off to the Harvard end of town, and into the best book store that I have ever visited.  The Harward Book Store shelves are piled high, the staff are helpful and it was packed with browsers.

While in Montreal I also had the opportunity to meet with Bill Vorn, who I have mentioned before (very briefly) in this blog.  In particular, I was interested in talking to him about his work on a project called Grace State Machines, but I was really interested to see all of the machines he has made which are scattered about his laboratory at Corncordia.

I really love visiting labs/studios, they’re usually cluttered, with nowhere to sit down, and bits and pieces of metal and wire everywhere.  It’s just great – and I’m really beginning to wonder if I should make my own machines!

I also went back to look at Jessica Field’s work in the museum for a second time.  Jessica had obviously dropped in to fix Clara, because she was much more talkative on my second visit (or maybe she just recognised me from before)?!

Jessica has been building robots for more than ten years, and has an exhibit in the Communicating Vessels: New Technologies and Contemporary Art exhibition I mentioned in the previous post.  A video of this work, in which three static robots: Alan, Clara, Brad and Daphne interact with one another to “watch” and “discuss” the movements of their visitors.  A video explaining this work is available online.  I went to visit these robots on Tuesday, and again today (Thursday).  I saw Jessica in between, and mentioned that Clara didn’t seem to be saying much.  I suspect that some maintenance work may have taken place, because today both Alan and Clara were working well, and I had fun moving about the space in front of them, in particular moving close to Clara’s “eyes”, which provoked an interesting reaction.  You have to spend time with these robots in order to see how they interact, and the problems that they experience in communicating with one another.  They “see” the world in very different ways, and cannot therefore agree on what is happening around them.

Jessica is now working on a new set of four robots, three of which can move around a sort of robot play-pen.  As far as I am aware these robots do not yet have names, but they do have clearly defined characteristics and different levels of personality.  The static robot reacts to sounds it “hears” with its two ears.  If a sound reaches both ears then it switches on a light while the sound continues.  If it only “hears” with one ear, then it moves around orienting itself to the sound.  One of the moving robots can show either a phototropic or photophobic response, and it moves appropriately.  As it does this is draws a line on the ground.  Another moving robots follows lines it finds on the ground, and when it reaches the end of a line it stops, and “tells” you what it has read with sound.  It then becomes attracted to sound, and will move towards this until it finds another line and reverts to line following.  The third moving robot follows light in a more “intelligent” way than the robot with a hard wired response.  It considers it’s movement, and moves more smoothly.  However, I didn’t see this robot in action as it was in parts on Jessica’s desk!

As you can probably tell from the description above, these four robots are designed to form a robot ecosystem.  They interact with one another, and also, to a certain extent, with their visitors when they follow sound.

Although I took photos of these robots it’s not appropriate for me to post them here.  These robots are Jessica’s work in progress, and are being prepared for exhibit in January.  As Jessica works on the robots she keeps a book of observations.  These include scientific information about the circuit diagrams and programming of the robots, but also textual descriptions, stories and narratives based on her observations of the robots.

These robots are going to be presented in tandem with a video.  This will take the form of what sounds like a “nature programme” about the robots and how they behave.  This video is actually going to overstate what the robots are capable of doing, and Jessica is interested to see how visitors then understand the actual movements and behaviours of the robots in the installation.

Above is the view of the harbour from my hotel.

The theme of the conference was “CODE” and I presented a paper called “Machine codes in conversations with embodied emotional robots”, which went surprisingly well considering the level of jet lag I was experiencing at the time! I was on the panel, “Robots & Zombies”, with Nick Knouf and Jentery Sayers, both of whom gave great papers. Nick’s, which was about his robot called Syngvan (n here indicates the version of the project a, b, c, etc), had a particular resonance with my own, as we share an interest in non-humanoid, non-anthropomorphic robots.

In addition to attending the conference, with N. Katherine Hayles and Brian Massumi as plenary speakers, I also had a little time to explore Portland. Here is a picture of the only weatherboard observatory I have ever seen (rather like a windmill which has had its wings pulled off),

and another view of the water from where I ate lunch in the park.

You can see that there is some construction going on in Portland, but it was still a nice place to walk around, and the seafood was great .

Tomorrow I take the early train to Boston, and then fly straight out to Montreal. I’m going to visit Bill Vorn and Jessica Field, both of whom create robotic art installations.