Learning to Move, Learning to Play, Learning to Animate

"Learning to Move, Learning to Play, Learning to Animate" is a cross-disciplinary multimedia performance that challenges the human-centric perspective, offering a new way to experience the world. This performance features robots made from natural materials, using technologies like AI-generated visuals, real-time bio-feedback, and electroacoustic sound.Inspired by ecologist David Abram’s concept of the “more-than-human world,” our work explores intelligences beyond the human, questioning whether intelligence is exclusive to humans or can exist in wood, stone, metal, and silicon. The performance examines coexistence with technology and nature without dominance.Integrating organic robotics and real-time generative AI, the piece blends human creativity with synthetic intelligence. AI-generated visuals, processed using StreamDiffusion-TD and Kinect within Touch Designer, enable evolving interactions between performers and their digital counterparts. Bio-feedback systems translate plant signals into dynamic visual and auditory elements, fostering a symbiotic relationship between human, machine, and nature.The piece introduces ambiguity through the interconnectedness of human, ecological, and technological entities, blurring traditional distinctions. Shadows play a crucial role, symbolizing perception and reality, blending natural and synthetic elements to highlight unseen connections. Machines, often seen merely as our creations, exhibit the agency to create art and influence our understanding of the world.Through this immersive experience, we invite the audience to explore learning, interaction, and perception within the more-than-human world. Our performance aims to redefine the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, fostering a deeper understanding of the collective intelligence shared by humans, technology, and the environment.