PLEASE,
TURN
ME
OFF.
The function(ing) of artificial characters in contemporary theatre
Student: Merel Eigenhuis / 11306483
Studies: Master Dramaturgy (Arts and Culture), University of Amsterdam Date: May 2020
Supervisor: Kati Röttger Second reader: Ricarda Franzen
Is
look up now, there is
a definition coming through
the river of light
- Written by a bot as part of a Turing-test, via www.botpoet.com (accessed on 10-04-2020)
Preface
You are now reading my thesis, named Please Turn Me Off: The function(ing) of artificial
characters in contemporary theatre. I was hesitant to write a preface, but I feel it is appropriate
to dedicate a few words to the crisis that is unfolding in the world at the time I am finishing this thesis.
Writing and finishing this thesis amid the COVID-19 pandemic was interesting. Researching this topic during this crisis first seemed quite trivial. However, during the writing process, it became clear that ‘the theatre’ itself is in transition due to the crisis that is currently unfolding: from many theatre registrations being put online to Zoom-performances with ticket sales. I have seen more digital initiatives of ‘the theatre’ in the past weeks than I have seen in the years before. I think that research on digital applications in performance and performance in an online environment is needed. While not claiming that this thesis is explicitly focused on these topics, the research on artificial characters that is conducted in this thesis, is linked to these research areas.
This crisis has given me new strength, not only to finish this thesis but also to see the importance of becoming a digital dramaturg, as I would like to call it.
With this master thesis, I conclude my academic study-path at the University of Amsterdam, but I am at the very start of my dramaturgical career. In these critical times, I look forward to specializing more and more in this type of digital dramaturgy, now, at least for me, the need for this kind of dramaturgy is more apparent than ever.
Lastly, I would like to thank Kati Röttger for her kind but thorough supervision, and the rest of the staff of the Theatre Studies/Dramaturgy department at the University of Amsterdam who have guided my study path during the last years and led me to this final work.
Merel Eigenhuis
Tableofcontents
Introduction 5
The history of automata and robots in literary and theatrical settings 6
The theatricality of robots 8
Mimesis and mimicry 10
Theoretical framework 12
Posthumanism 12
New materialism and object-oriented ontologies 13
Postphenomenology 14
Intermediality 15
1. Artificial death and poetic mourning in Sayonara (2011) 18
1.1 Summary of Sayonara 19
1.2 Context: Japanese Robot Culture 20
1.3 Analysis of Sayonara 22
1.3.1 What’s in a name? Political representation and 23 gaining agency through performativity
1.3.2 A ‘second choice’? Provoking empathy 24 through language and its tragic faith
Conclusion 26
2. Representation and metaphysical mimicry in Uncanny Valley (2018) 28
2.1 Summary of Uncanny Valley 29
2.2 Analysis of Uncanny Valley 32
2.2.1 Representation, mimesis and the Uncanny Valley- 32
effect
2.2.2 The postphenomenological theatricalized 34
2.2.3 Body-voice relationship and language 35
2.2.4 Theatricality as a dramaturgical tool 36
Conclusion 38
3. Posthuman pubtalk in URLAND’s INTERNET OF THINGS/ 39
De Vuurbrenger (2016)
3.1 Summary of INTERNET OF THINGS/De Vuurbrenger 40
3.2 Analysis of INTERNET OF THINGS/De Vuurbrenger 42
3.2.1 The geometrical shapes: what does it mean to be an object? 43 3.2.2 Rainbow: ‘presence’ through text-to-speech audio. The 45 embodiment of the future?
3.2.3 The robotic arm: Fanuc S-500 as a reflection of culture 46 versus nature
Conclusion 48
Conclusion 50
Introduction
Robots have fascinated me for a long time now. The word ‘robot’ is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a machine that resembles a living creature in being capable of moving independently (as by walking or rolling on wheels) and performing complex actions (such as grasping and moving objects).”1 Be it the robot Sophia2 or the series Westworld3 – the fantasy world that comes with the idea of a robot triggered me. My twin-sister is a machine-learning engineer, and she would always proclaim that every human task could and probably would one day be replaced by robots and algorithms. I have been working and studying in the field of theatre and dramaturgy for almost a decade now, and I would always answer her claims with something along the lines of: “except for the theatre because the theatre is the most human-art form there is!” A robot cannot act. A robot cannot convey emotion the way a human being can. Arguably, the theatre is the most human-based art form there is since there is something – "magic"? – that happens when the actor and the spectator share the same experience in the same place. This experience is live. It is transitory. Until I realized – what if I am wrong? What if robots could somehow replace human actors? What if the theatre would change, if it would adapt differently to these digital times? What would that mean for the theatre, for the actor and the spectator?
This was when I started to research ‘artificial characters’ in contemporary theatre. ‘Artificial characters’ is a term that I have come up with for the scope of this thesis, meaning a non-human, artificial actor that is portraying a non-human, artificial character. I would like to use the term ‘artificial characters’ rather than robots, androids and/or humanoids to emphasize that these robots emerge in a theatrical setting and thus portray a character. The term ‘artificial’ is chosen because it links to the term ‘artificial intelligence’, but also to emphasize the fact that the characters have been artificially constructed by their makers to perform in a certain way. When I started researching this topic back in 2017, not much was written on artificial characters in contemporary performance. Some of the works on digital technologies in the theatre, specifically robot-theatre, are also quite outdated. Steve Dixon writes in his key work
Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theatre, Dance, Performance Art and Installation (2007) how robots in the theatre are mostly linked to camp aesthetics, which
1 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/robot
2 The robot Sophia is a social humanoid, developed in 2016 in Hong Kong by Hanson Robotics. She is capable of more than 60 facial
expressions. Even though ‘she’ is not ‘intelligent’ in the way that ‘she’ can function autonomously without prior programming, ‘she’ has gained widespread popularity and has appeared on numerous talkshows and other social gatherings.
3 The tv-series Westworld, created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy and produced by HBO, first aired in 2016. It revolves around multiple
statements such as: “[r]obotic movement mimics and exaggerates but never achieves the human, just as camp movement mimics and exaggerates, but never achieves womanhood. […] When a humanoid robot moves, just as when someone camps about, it is a knowing and self-conscious performance; its coding, artificiality, and difference from the norm are emphasized. Camp thus becomes a central, even determining aspect of anthropomorphic robot performance.”4 Today, this statement seems highly reductive, and it does not pay justice to the complex human-robot interaction that is seen in contemporary performance. In the past few years, the field has grown explosively. This makes it an enticing topic to work on, with many new research fields to dive into, like New Media Dramaturgy, an emerging research field in dramaturgy and theatre studies. This research field “[c]onsiders the ways in which the materiality of technical elements matters. As key players in an artwork, the behavior of elements within the dramaturgy - whether they are, for example, lighting patterns, robots, or atmospheres - influences every aspect of it as well as calling into question how works are made, how they are performed, and how they are engaged with and received by spectators.”5
Although it may seem that artificial characters in theatrical settings are just now arising, they do have a predecessor. These so-called ‘automata’ have an extensive history in the theatre and in literary spheres – one that I would like to expand on here in a nutshell so that a historical context can be taken into account.
The history of automata and robots in literary and theatrical settings
The first 'automata' date from the third century BC, when mechanical animals were produced, mainly as a sign of wealth in ancient China.6 Centuries of technological development followed, in which machines but mostly mechanical attributes were also presented in a theatrical setting, think of, for example, the Deus Ex Machina (god from the machine – here using the phenomenon of an actor appearing out of nowhere in ancient Greek theatre, with the help of different mechanical machinery, and not the term referring to the dramaturgical narrative). In the 18th century, however, something was arising that could be seen as the predecessor of the artificial character, namely: anthropomorphic automata. Anthropomorphic automata became popular with Europe’s inhabitants, for example, the automata shown in the Schloss
4 Steve Dixon, Digital Performance : A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and Installation, ed. Barry Smith
(Cambridge, MA [etc.: Cambridge, MA [etc.] : MIT Press, 2007). 247.
5 Peter Eckersall, Helena Grehan, and Edward Scheer, New Media Dramaturgy: Performance, Media and New-Materialism (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 3.
6 Steve Dixon, “Metal Performance Humanizing Robots, Returning to Nature, and Camping About,” TDR/The Drama Review 48, no. 4
Hellbrunn Palace Gardens in Salzburg, where an outdoor mechanical theatre presents the daily life of an eighteenth-century Austrian city, commissioned by Archbishop Andreas Jakob Graf von Dietrichstein in 1748-52, or the Marie Antoinette Tympanon Player, created for King Louis XVI in 1772.7
Skip forward a few decades, and a new kind of automaton was born, at least in literary spheres: the robot. Influenced by the number of lives lost in World War I due to new technologies, the debate between communism and capitalism about labor, the ideal society and the will to create ‘new’ life, the Czech playwright Karel Čapek wrote the play R.U.R. (Rossum's
Universal Robots) in 1921, in which he was the first to use the word ‘robot’. In Czech, robot
means 'work' or 'forced labor’. Although the piece can be read as an allegory for the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, it also reflects the fear of technological progress that prevailed at that time.8 What is unique about R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) is that it offers an intelligent, theatrical vision of the humanization of robots: in a factory, hyperintelligent robots are developed for mindless factory work, but ultimately the robots take matters into their own hands. They kill their creators and take over the factory, and later, the world. It is important to note that R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) depicts robots, but that, of course, in the theatrical performances, the robots were portrayed by humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal
Robots) has been essential for forming the image of a robot. It differed from the automata that
were already presented in theatrical settings centuries earlier, according to Kara Reilly in her work Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History, because in the robot, anxious skepticism for technology and scientific progress prevailed, which was not present yet in the Victorian era: “[t]his anxious skepticism was partially the result of machine warfare, but also of the real fear that human beings would become slaves to the machines they had created. In particular, it is this anxious skepticism about Industrialization that differentiates robots from automata.”9
In the late twentieth century, artificial characters started to take center stage in contemporary performances. Nowadays, robots in theatrical settings are popular. Significant Dutch (theatre) festivals such as the Holland Festival (Amsterdam) and SPRING Performing Arts Festival (Utrecht) have paid special attention to artificial characters in their program in
7 Kara Reilly, Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History, Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History (Palgrave
Macmillan UK, 2011).
8 Dixon, “Metal Performance Humanizing Robots, Returning to Nature, and Camping About.” 16.
9 Kara Reilly, Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History, Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History (Palgrave
recent years. This is not a coincidence, because, as I would like to argue, the figure of the robot is eminently theatrical.
The theatricality of robots
In 1942, writer Isaac Asimov designed three rules for robotics, primarily meant for the robots the writer designed in his fictitious universes. He described these three rules in his short story
Runaround, presented in the 1950 collection of his work ‘I, Robot’:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.10
Even though the rules pertain to an imaginative set of robots, Asimov changed the world's perception of robotics forever, holding the robot itself (partly) accountable for its behavior. Decades of speculations, stories, and movies followed, where the robot was usually seen as a threat to humanity.
Looking at the most common explanation of the term ‘theatricality’, it stands out as a way to describe some kind of artificiality, for example as defined by literary scholar Elisabeth Burns: “[t]heatricality occurs when certain behavior seems to be not natural or spontaneous, but composed according to this grammar of rhetorical and authenticating conventions in order to achieve some particular effect on its viewers.”11 It has also been used to make the distinction between the 'self' and a 'role', in which the latter is constructed. Theatricality, in this framed definition, has to do with “the illusion of authenticity”.12
However, as theatre scholars Davis and Postlewait point out, in this way, the term theatricality is mostly used as a metaphorical concept, a concept for describing human behavior in society. In a definition more closely related to the theatrical event, Davis and Postlewait describe how theatricality does not merely mean the behavior of the actor or the one being looked at, but also the way the theatrical event is perceived by the spectator, and what spectators and performers do together in the “making of the theatrical event”.13 Burns defines it as a mode of looking, both in a social sphere and in context of the theatre: “[…] theatricality itself is
10 Isaac Asimov, I, Robot (New York: Bantam Books, 2004).
11 Elizabeth Burns, Theatricality : A Study of Convention in the Theatre and in Social Life (London : Longman, 1972). 33. 12 Idem, 6.
defined by a particular viewpoint, a mode of perception.”14 Josette Féral describes it as an extraordinary event outside the sphere of the spectator:
Theatricality is the result of a perceptual dynamics linking the onlooker with someone or something that is looked at. This relationship can be initiated either by the actor who declares his intention to act or by the spectator who, of his initiative, transforms the other into a spectacular object. By watching, the spectator creates an "other'' space, no longer subject to the laws of the quotidian, and in this space, he inscribes what he observes, perceiving it as belonging to a space where he has no place except as external observer. Without this gaze, indispensable for the emergence of theatricality and for its recognition as such, the other would share the spectator’s space and remain part of his daily reality.15
In this way, theatricality is described as a lens; not as an attribute to, but as a mode of perception, being (partly) created by the spectator. The spectator creates the “other space”, as explained in the quote above, and steps outside the realm of the quotidian in order to subject itself to a place where the spectator is an external observer, or, at least, a place where the spectator is spectating16 something that is created for this spectator. This concept of theatricality functions as a trigger for the imagination. In performances that use artificial characters, theatricality can thus be assigned by the spectator onto those technologies that make up the artificial characters, and that opens up a realm of possibilities for the examination and exploration of new relationships between man and machine. Dramaturg and theatre scholar Peter Eckersall describes how this relationship can develop in a theatrical environment using Kris Verdonck's work, where the binary opposition between man and machine disappears: “[...] it is not the competition between objects and humans for existence that is important here. There is no such binary anymore. [...] the constantly changing relations of objects and humans are such that one displaces the other only to find itself displaced in turn. This suggests that a dramaturgy of robots and object figures is always in motion and in a state of rearrangement and adjustment.”17 The movement that can be made in the theatre, namely the constant reorganization of the relationship between man and machine, makes it a valuable place for reflection on this
14 Elizabeth Burns, Theatricality : A Study of Convention in the Theatre and in Social Life (London : Longman, 1972). 13.
15 Josette Feral and Ronald P Bermingham, “Theatricality: The Specificity of Theatrical Language,” SubStance 31, no. 2 (2002): 94–108.
105.
16 I would like to argue, in the same line of reasoning that Jacques Ranciere does in his work The Emancipated Spectator (2008) that this is
an active activity. For this thesis not important enough to digress on, but important as a footnote.
17 Peter Eckersall, “Towards a Dramaturgy of Robots and Object-Figures,” TDR/The Drama Review 59, no. 3 (2015): 123–31,
relationship. This relationship may even change as a result, as described in New Media
Dramaturgies: Performance, Media and New Materialism (2017): “[...] these agentic objects
now appear to engage in complex processes of negotiation and reflection on the emergent possibilities of a new order of experience between the machinic object and the active subject.”18 This relationship has the possibility to go beyond the theatrical gimmick and could potentially cross over to the ‘real’ world. Artificial characters in theatrical settings are, therefore, potentially important for the theatre but also for worlds outside the theatre, for example for research on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). This potential has not gone unnoticed: many test-labs for artificial characters in theatrical settings have been set up or are now starting an extensive research-period, for example, the Acting Like A Robot - Theatre as
Testbed for the Robot Revolution, a collaboration between Universiteit Utrecht, Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, theatre company Ulrike Quade and SPRING Performing Arts Festival.19 This research project is first mainly focused on robots in a theatrical sphere, but also has intentions to go beyond.
Mimesis and mimicry
When looking at the theatrical qualities of robots and therefore also artificial characters, the concept of ‘mimesis’ also comes to mind. Mimesis is amongst the oldest terms in theatre theory, with one of the oldest uses of the word found in Plato’s The Republic, where he condemns mimesis for being a representation of a representation (the material world we perceive but is not the actual world of pure Forms).20 Often, mimesis is translated as ‘representation’ or ‘imitation’. Usually, the term is also linked to realism. At the very heart of the debates around mimesis, there is a tension between real and false. Because, when mimesis takes place, there is per definition a kind of ‘re-imagining’ happening, which often happens in artworks, whether it is fine arts or performing arts. An interesting question when thinking about mimesis is: what will be represented or re-imagined in art, and why? Or, in the case of robots and artificial characters: who will be represented, and why? This is not an a-political choice. As theatre scholar Kara Reilly describes in the introduction to her work Automata and Mimesis on the
Stage of Theatre History that: “[...] automata are central to debates about mimesis or the
18 Peter Eckersall, Helena Grehan, and Edward Scheer, New Media Dramaturgy: Performance, Media and New-Materialism (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 4.
19 https://www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-results/research-projects/i/25/34325.html
representation of reality in the historical period in which they exist.”21 As I explained in an earlier section, automata are the predecessor of artificial characters. I would like to argue that the quote of Reilly also could refer to artificial characters, in the way that how they are represented and whom they represent, is an indicator of the values of that historical period. As Reilly also states: “Mimesis, unlike the other buzzwords of the last generation – race, class and gender – is not only ‘socially constructed’, instead of what mimesis reveals, is the very process of social construction itself.”22 In the debates around mimesis, the notion of Baudrillard's ‘simulacrum’ appears, where the real has disappeared and the simulacrum is merely a copy of a copy.23 With mimesis, there is supposedly still a so-called ‘original’ to return to. However, perceptions of reality shift and only exist in a certain historical period. In this line of reasoning, the ‘original’ is also subjected to a particular historical period. When looking at artificial characters, I would like to question the distinction between the ‘original’ and the ‘representation’, or, the process of mimesis. The question who is represented and why, and what that shows about the context in which the performance is made, remains an important question that will be further touched upon in the upcoming chapters.
The subject of this thesis, artificial characters will be analyzed thoroughly through three contemporary performances: Sayonara (2011) by the Japanese theatre maker Oriza Hirata,
Uncanny Valley (2018) by the German theatre collective Rimini Protokoll and INTERNET OF THINGS/De Vuurbrenger (2016) (part of De Internet Trilogie) by the Dutch theatre collective
URLAND. These performances are chosen because of their different use of artificial characters, from the interplay between an android and a human actor to the sole presence of the artificial character on stage to artificial characters that are non-anthropomorphic. To analyze these performances, my methodological approach will combine performance analysis and lenses of posthumanism, new materialism, postphenomenology and intermediality. Through these lenses, the central question of this thesis will be explored, which is: how do the artificial characters function in the performances and how do they relate to the performance as a whole?
21 Kara Reilly, Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History, Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History (Palgrave
Macmillan UK, 2011), https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347540. 1.
22 Kara Reilly, Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History, Automata and Mimesis on the Stage of Theatre History (Palgrave
Macmillan UK, 2011), https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347540. 10.
23 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation / by Jean Baudrillard ; Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser, Idea, 1994,
Theoretical framework
For this thesis, different concepts will be used on which I will build my argument. I will describe some of the key works in posthumanism (Barad, Hayles), new materialism and other theories that derive from this theoretical term (Bennett et al.), postphenomenology (Verbeek), and intermediality (Pavis, Lavender).
Posthumanism
Arguably one of the most important concepts that will be used in this thesis is the concept of posthumanism. In the second half of the twentieth century, the image of the Man as a rational being that was the measure of all things fell apart. Instead of a humanistic worldview, a new set of ideas emerged, which constituted a worldview in which man was no longer the center of the world. The contrast between these two movements is clearly explained by performance scholars Travis Brisini and Jake Simmons:
The human, humanist philosophy contends, is to be understood to be the
measure of all things, a fraternal unity with shared defining characteristics that include reason, empiricism, and a position of ultimate development (via refinement and mastery) when contrasted with the rest of the world' s inhabitants and processes. [...] A posthuman perspective, on the other hand, marks the decentering of humanity from the central position of authority; we are no longer the ideal against which all comparisons are to be set. The posthumanist proposition is that our lives are a complicated material set of relationships between human and nonhuman animals and materials.24
Posthumanism revolves around two important characteristics. First, it situates man in a new ‘natural’ environment, in order to eliminate the (binary) distinction between ‘man’ and ‘animal’ or other ‘matter’. The second characteristic, which is very relevant for this thesis, is the distinction between man and technology. Posthumanism recognizes that man has always lived in a technological world and has been shaped by it in the beginning, and now exists in it as well. Mankind cannot be separated anymore from technology, in the way that it has shaped and
24 Travis Brisini and Jake Simmons, “Posthuman Relations in Performance Studies,” Text and Performance Quarterly 36, no. 4 (2016): 191–
directed our lives in ways that cannot be untangled anymore. The dialectic relationship between organic and non-organic material thus undermines the distinction between man and machine. Leading scholar in this field of research, Katherine Hayles, states that in the posthuman, the ideas about boundaries between human life and other life forms are questioned.25 In the performance analysis-part of this thesis, a posthumanist approach will be taken. Philosopher Karen Barad talks about potential posthuman approaches in one of her essays, in which she speaks about "examining the practices through which these differential boundaries between human-life and other live-forms are stabilized and destabilized.”26 The analysis of these boundaries will be an entry point for the analysis. Brisini and Simmons also write about relational materiality, in which the different entities are examined in the relationships they have with each other. If this relation materiality is then seen in the light of performativity, these entities can be examined through the mechanisms "performed in, by, and through those relations".27 Posthumanism thus provides, for this research, an opportunity to consider both man and machines and different technologies through the relations to each other rather than in relation to man as such.
New materialism and object-oriented ontologies
When looking at the man-machine relationship that prevails in contemporary theatre, Jane Bennetts’ Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2009) is a key work that could clarify important questions. Even though there are no robots or artificial characters as such presented in Bennetts’ work, her reclaimed use of the Spinozan concept conatus is helpful when looking at the relationship that is presented on stage. Bennett writes: “[c]onatus names an ‘active impulsion’ or trending tendency to persist. […] [E]very nonhuman body shares with every human body a conative nature (and thus a ‘virtue’ appropriate to its material configuration). Conatus names a power present in every body.”28 With this concept of conatus, which describes the subjects’ or objects’ performative potential, Bennett ascribes a particular type of agency to human and nonhuman life; people and objects. By looking at agency through the lens of conatus, the persevering agency, it changes the binary between human and nonhuman life. Robots and other objects presented in the theatre can be analyzed be as ‘protosubjectives’ – potential subjects that have not reached their full potential yet, not yet ‘fully
25 N Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman : Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago, IL [etc.: Chicago,
IL [etc.] : University of Chicago Press, 1999).
26" Karen Barad, “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter,” Signs 28, no. 3 (2003): 801–31,
https://doi.org/10.1086/345321.
27 Brisini and Simmons, “Posthuman Relations in Performance Studies.” 194.
born’ or actualized. As Eckersall, Grehan and Scheer write in their work New Media
Dramaturgy: “[t]he protosubjective also marks a transitional state or liminal phase between the
objecthood of the machine and the subjecthood of the human, which is where this discourse of representation is properly situated.”29
In this same line of reasoning, the robot could be seen as a hyperobject. The concept is derived from the work of Timothy Morton30 and pertains to a group of objects that exceed the parameters of time and space set by mankind. Morton uses powerful terms to describe the hyperobject: uncanniness, unreality and horror. Morton argues that climate change, for a part at least, caused by these hyperobjects (think of Styrofoam cups, for example, or oil that leaks into the ocean and will never disappear), and even argues that climate change itself is a hyperobject. It is beyond human power to keep controlling the effects of these hyperobjects. At some point, these hyperobjects will create their own type of affective agency. Robots can be added to this list of hyperobjects as well: with a robot, there is no mortal end. This has implications for the portrayal of the artificial character. Both the hyperobject and the protosubjective reading of a robot or nonhuman actor share a common ground of questions about agency and performativity, but they do have different nuances. Where the hyperobject-definition is not bound to the object itself – but mostly to the effect it has, the protosubject remains object-bound and refers to its development in transition. While the hyperobject does not pertain to a human standard – it defeats humanmade liminal and spatial constraints, the protosubject remains pertained to a human standard. For this thesis, therefore, both concepts will be used. The potential of the hyperobject and the protosubject to mediate the experience of the human is something that will be explored within the upcoming chapters.
Postphenomenology
For the scope of this thesis, a short examination of the man-technology relationship in a more general sense is helpful. In a semi-recent philosophical movement that builds on the body of thought of phenomenology, aptly called postphenomenology, this relationship is at stake. As Robert Rosenberger and Peter-Paul Verbeek explain in their work Postphenomenological
Investigations: Essays on Human-Technology Relations:
The postphenomenological approach combines an empirical orientation with philosophical analysis. It calls itself "post"-phenomenology to emphasize that it
29 Eckersall, Grehan, and Scheer, New Media Dramaturgy: Performance, Media and New-Materialism. 114.
distances itself from the romanticism of classical phenomenology. Rather than positioning itself in opposition to science and technology, it aims to integrate science and technology in its analysis of the relations between human beings and their world.31
Classic phenomenology states that phenomenology describes things more closely, in contrast to science, where things are analyzed. However, precisely this assertion, that there is an original world 'behind' the world of science and technology, is what post-phenomenology rejects. Man can only be described in relation to his surroundings, which are often technological. This is called ‘technological mediation’ (technologische bemiddeling), as Verbeek describes in one of his other publications called De Grens van de Mens: over techniek, ethiek en de menselijke
natuur: “[t]echnologieën kunnen richting geven aan iemands handelen of iemands bewustzijn.
[…] Technologische bemiddeling kan gezien worden als een specifieke, materiele vorm van intentionaliteit. Door de relatie tussen mens en werkelijkheid te bemiddelen, geven technologieën richting aan menselijke handelingen en ervaringen.”32
This mediating quality of technology is one that should be examined within a postphenomenological approach, as Verbeek explains within one of his other key-works: "[a] postphenomenological ‘turn towards things’ in the philosophy of technology [...] needs to consist of the analysis of the mediating role of technological artifacts in the relation between human beings and reality.”33 This should be done in a hermeneutic way, according to Verbeek, when referring to Don Idhe, where technology “forms the tissue of meaning”34 in which our existence shapes itself.
This postphenomenological approach will allow us to examine the various case studies that will be analyzed in chapters 2, 3 and 4. The questions that will be asked are: how does the artificial character shape the (human) experience when analyzing this performance?
Intermediality
Since the 1960s, various technical media have appeared in the theatre on a large scale. Whereas in the beginning there was a cautious reaction to different media in the theatre (after all: theatre is about 'the living body', what can media such as film add to that?), today it is the rather the
31 Robert Rosenberger, Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human-Technology Relations, ed. Peter-Paul Verbeek (S.l.:
Lexington Books, 2015). 11.
32 Peter-Paul (Peter-Paul Camiel Christiaan) Verbeek, De Grens van de Mens : Over Techniek, Ethiek En de Menselijke Natuur (Rotterdam:
Lemniscaat, 2011). 52.
33 Peter-Paul Verbeek, What Things Do : Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design, ed. Robert P Crease (University
Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005). 118.
rule than the exception. This is due not only to the fact that it reflects the concerns of technology in contemporary society but also to several distinctive characteristics of theatre. First of all, theatre is a medium that other media can absorb without its status as 'theatre'. By performing video projections in a theatre play, for example, it does not become a film. The same applies to other art forms. Theatre absorbs and thus connects different (art) forms. In addition, theatre can make a medium visible by performing it. Theatre can perform a film and thus expose the modus
operandi, for example, by integrating the cameras, screens and cords into the piece itself. In the
case of artificial characters, it can expose the modus operandi of these different technologies used, which is arguably a kind of medium in itself. Intermediality considers all these characteristics of the theatre. The concept of intermediality is defined in various ways. However, according to Patrice Pavis, it is a dynamic process that takes place in the permanent interplay between and in the transformation of media. A condition for this is that what appears in a medium is never the medium itself, but rather that other media appear in it. A medium appears on stage as an image of a medium: “[intermediality] does not mean the addition of different media concepts, nor the act of placing discrete works in relation to particular forms of media, but rather the integration of aesthetic concepts from different media into a new concept.”35 The effect of new media on the theatre is undeniable. Steve Dixon, author of the work Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theater, Dance, Performance Art, and
Installation (2007), writes that he is certain that "[...] that the conjunction of performance and
new media has and does bring about genuinely new stylistic and aesthetic modes, and unique and unprecedented performance experiences, genres, and ontologies".36
According to scholar Andy Lavender, the effect of digital culture (culture formed by influences from digital technologies) in the theatre is that viewers have multiple experiences when seeing an intermedial performance. In essence, it is considered both phenomenological and systematic. The effect of this is
[…] that of a network in which interrelated elements and phenomena coexist. The network is not (only) abstract and remote, but (also) inhabited and experienced. Productive doublings and connections abound. In the interrelation of digital culture and intermedial performance, coherence is produced in the face of fragmentation, gathering through plurality. Media are both distinct and synthesized. Bodies are involved and
35 Patrice Pavis, Analyzing Performance : Theater, Dance, and Film, ed. David Williams (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press,
2003). 49.
apart. An intermedial dramaturgy ‘inscribes’ presentation with mediatization, form with feeling, and evokes the always-other in the here-and-now of performance.37
The way that different media are integrated in the presented case-studies shows, in all cases, a complex relationship between the media but, moreover, between man and technology.
Finally, I would like to say in this introductory chapter, that in this research, I will analyze three recent international performances that use technology not as a means, but as the exact theme of their performance. They all present artificial characters that are constructed in different ways, also due to different ideological ideas, and thus the artificial characters all function differently in their respective performances. Opposed to a focus on the ontological, this research is first and foremost centered around the ways the artificial character arises within a given theatrical semiotic system. Each performance will be analyzed through a methodological scope of performance analysis in which the theatrical signs will be analyzed, accompanied by several concepts which I mentioned above. While some of the analyses and observations of the artificial characters that I will describe in the upcoming chapters could be applied to all artificial characters (also the ones present in the other case studies) I will only state them once, and only analyze the aspects of the performance with the accompanying theories and scholars that stand out to me and make the given performance unique in their use of the artificial character. The three performances that I will analyze are chosen because of their makers’ innovative practices in the international performance landscape, which are the Japanese theatre maker Oriza Hirata, the Dutch performance collective URLAND and the German performance collective Rimini Protokoll. Each analysis of each case study will be accompanied by an analysis of the performance within the context in which it is made, which is especially important in the case of the performance of Hirata. This research might contribute to the field of research in posthuman- and digital performance and human-robot interaction (HRI) but does not pretend to be an all-encompassing research and is first and foremost centered around the performances presented in the case studies.
37Andy Lavender, “Digital Culture,” in Mapping Intermediality in Performance, ed. Sarah Bay-Cheng et al. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
1. ArtificialdeathandpoeticmourninginSayonara
The performance Sayonara (2011) by Japanese director Oriza Hirata is one of the first performances ever to introduce a robot on stage that can function without direct physical contact with a human being. For his performances, Hirata mostly collaborates with the Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro. Together they have developed multiple robots that are used as artificial characters in several performances in the Seinendan Theatre Company (Tokyo). The drama of people living with robots is usually the central theme in Hirata and Ishiguro's performances. However, they also show the possibilities of a robot and a human developing an emotional bond.
Hirata is known for his unique directing style, which he named the ‘Contemporary Colloquial Theatre Theory’. This theory was derived from the direct import of Western drama to the Japanese stage, which did not seem to translate well, both in content and in language. Hirata stated that “an intimate social dimension of Japanese communication is absent in modern theatre.”38 As a countermovement to the untranslatable Western drama, Hirata designed this
Contemporary Colloquial Theatre Theory, which transforms complicated poetic western “drama dialogue” to a simple collection of verbal fragments. It also became a method for staging and instructing human actors. The CCTT focuses on reproducing human interaction. As Hirata states:
Our strategy is to critically reconsider theatrical theories and to reconstruct delicate and dramatic space on stage. We believe that we can create such a space by basing our theater on the Japanese language and lifestyle, while at the same time creating a new theatrical language, which is a unified form of both written and spoken language.39
In performances that are devised following this theory, the acting style is naturalistic. No improvisation is possible when following the Contemporary Colloquial Theatre Theory. The actors are given precise instructions where to stand (to the centimeter) and when to speak (to the second). While developed for human actors, it turned out that such precise stage directions are directly applicable to humanoid robots, making them robotic stage actors, where they can function as an artificial character. In this way, Hirata does not treat robots and human actors
38 Denise Varney et al., Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
101.
differently when directing his performances. By doing so and following this theory, Hirata tries to hide the liminality of the robot. In a way, he follows Edward Gordon Craig’s notion of the “uber-marionette” here, instructing actors and robots on their physical movements and utterances instead of their emotional imagination.40
The performance that I will be discussing is Sayonara, which means 'goodbye' (with the connotation of finiteness). The play-text was written and first performed in 2010. However, after the seaquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster around and in Fukushima in March 2011, Hirata added an extra ±5 minutes, making the performance have a different ending. In the first version the death of the young woman marks the end of the performance, while in this version, the ending consists of Geminoid F encountering the technician, and while malfunctioning, hearing that it will be sent to Fukushima. This version that premiered late 2011 is about 25 minutes long and features two human characters and an artificial character. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to see the performance live, so my analysis is based on a video registration of the performance. First, I will give a summary of the performance, with the essential points of the performance highlighted. After that, I will analyze how this artificial character is functioning within this given performance, taking the specific Japanese context in which the performance is made into account.
1.1 Summary of Sayonara
The stage is dark when a poem is being recited. Gradually, the lights are turned on, and we see Geminoid F (the artificial character) and a young (human) western woman, sitting opposite from each other on the stage. It becomes clear that the poem is being recited by Geminoid F, and not the young woman. Geminoid F was bought by the young woman’s father to reassure and comfort her with well-known poems by famous English, German, French, and Japanese poets. She speaks about “being little when he [her father] bought you for me”, so they have been together for a while. We find out that the young woman has cancer and is dying. Geminoid F speaks with a soothing voice, although the movements and the voice of Geminoid F are not always lined up. The poems that Geminoid F recites are chosen by Geminoid F itself, not by the young woman. Geminoid F and the woman have a short conversation, in which Geminoid F and the woman seem to care about each other. They talk about loneliness and happiness. The young woman then says she is tired and that she will go to sleep.
Then the stage turns dark again. When the lights turn back on, Geminoid F is alone on stage. The woman has left and died. A man, a technician, enters the stage. Geminoid F still recites poems. The man is on the phone with his employer. In the conversation that he has on the phone, the man says that the robot "[is] not completely broken, but it is a bit broken" and "it looks like it [Geminoid F] doesn't know what's wrong with itself". He turns Geminoid F off. He turns it back on. Geminoid F stops reciting poems. The man then has a short conversation with the robot: "you are going to a place where there are no people. [...] We want you to keep reciting poems there. [...] Many people died there, but we can't go there, and we can't recite poetry to them. […] So, I'm asking you to do it." Geminoid F answers: "Yes. If I can be helpful, even in this state, then I am very happy”. Geminoid F is then picked up by the man and carried off stage, while she recites a well-known poem by Shimazaki Tōson (1872-1943). She is sent to Fukushima, where she will recite poems to the victims of the nuclear disaster for all eternity. The last lines of the piece are: "[b]ut thinking of the coming and going of the waves, I know that one day I will return to my home".
1.2 Context: Japanese Robot Culture
Since the Japanese context in which this performance is made, differs significantly from the Western European context in which the other performances are made, it is useful to reflect upon this context in this sub-chapter to later analyze how this artificial character functions within this performance. Therefore, some background information on this context is given here. For this section, the book Japanese Robot Culture: Performance, Imagination and Modernity (2017) by Yuji Sone is used. While realizing this is one of the many options that could be used to describe the Japanese context in which this artificial character is arising, for the scope of this thesis, I have chosen to only use this work, because of the emphasis it places on the performing robot and because of its recent appearance.
Yuji Sone describes in her work Japanese Robot Culture: Performance, Imagination and
Modernity (2017) how the Japanese performing robot is different from a “western” robot.
Where the western world usually has ambivalent feelings towards the robot, Sone argues that in Japan, “cultural expressions regarding robots can be examined as complex responses to the intuitional implementation of Japan’s modernization.”41
Japan began to modernize towards the late 19th century during the Meiji Restoration
(1868), when Japan’s technological status was still seen as old-fashioned by the western world. The Japanese, who wanted to keep up with the west due to war-threats, started to promote and enforce modernity, and even though these decisions were made top-down, the public did initially not reject these rapid changes.42 During the 1930s and 1940s, the Japanese
modernization began to receive a backlash, where the Japanese traditional 'high culture' was associated with masculinity, authenticity and 'the inside', and the western-oriented 'low-culture' was associated with femininity, inauthenticity and 'the outside'. Sone describes that "[t]his dichotomy between Japan and the west is the unresolved conundrum at the core of Japanese modernism. The division is equally evident in Japan’s understanding of its technology. The phrase, ‘wakon yo¯sai’ (Japanese spirit and Western technology) represents the desire to solve the problem.”43 However, this sentiment was mostly in the pre-World War II era. After World
War II, Japanese technology was seen in terms of progressive development, and its success was seen as "an extension of cultural exceptionalism.”44 Sone argues that the figure of the robot is
conceived at the very heart of the tension between Japanese culture and technology when talking about the performative robots: “[e]nacting Japanese essence in a way that connects Japan’s cultural past to its technologized future, these robots become performative objects that excite both the producers and their enchanted audiences.”45 Another reason for the difference
in reactions to the robot in the West versus the East lies in deep-rooted believes of religion. In the ancient Japanese Shinto-faith (which preceded the rise of Buddhism in Japan and remains, to this day, an influential part of the culture of the country), animism is a quite common belief. Animism is the notion that all things have a spirit (kami), and it is believed that all these spirits – also found in artificial-made tools, like kitchen appliances, but also applicable to the robot (‘techno-animism’)– are in harmony with human beings.46 In the west, in contrast, theocratic
religions have led their followers to believe that creation by mankind inevitably leads to doom scenarios, because, following theocratic religious reasoning, ‘only God can create life’. In Japan, the robot has been linked to wealth and economic growth and is not seen as threatening as the robot is seen in other countries due to deeply rooted believes in the Japanese culture. A recent estimation shows that about 50% of all the worlds’ robots are in use in Japan47;
the reason for this is not only found in the Japanese culture but also in the population dynamics. 42 Yuji Sone, Japanese Robot Culture: Performance, Imagination and Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan US, 2017). 11.
43 Idem, 13. 44 Idem, 14. 45 Idem, 13.
46 Casper Bruun Jensen and Anders Blok, “Techno-Animism in Japan: Shinto Cosmograms, Actor-Network Theory, and the Enabling
Powers of Non-Human Agencies,” Theory, Culture & Society 30, no. 2 (2013): 84–115, https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276412456564.
Namely, the population is rapidly aging and increasingly dependent and because of this, the country suffers from a chronic labor shortage.48 As a solution to these problems, Japan is hoping
to be the largest robotics-supported society in the world. This performance can be seen as a futuristic image of the caretaker-roles that might fall upon robots shortly, next to other industries that might benefit from performing robots.
While not claiming that this performance is made to promote robots that take over caretaker-roles, this sub-chapter does illustrate that within a Japanese context, the performing robot might be looked upon differently than in a Western European context, stemming from a different relationship with inanimate matter. Since (performing) robots are more prominent in popular culture and since there is relatively much research and development on/of the robot within Japan, the scenario of the robot gradually taking over caretaker-roles might not seem as science-fiction to the general public. This performance, therefore, reflects within this Japanese context, upon a not-so-distant future.
1.3 Analysis of Sayonara
In this short performance piece, we see an artificial character and a young woman mostly conversing, until the young woman disappears. Geminoid F gets carried off stage by a technician. Geminoid F is fully teleoperated, by an operator during the performances. Its movements are based on extensive studies and rehearsals with a human actress who functioned as the stand-in of the robot, and also provided the voice. The piece can be performed in 4 different languages: Japanese, French, English and German, depending on the audience. Mostly, it is performed in English, with the poems that Geminoid F is reciting mostly in the original language of the poem. In the English version, the android spoke 49 times (718 words), while the opposite actress spoke 48 times (363 words).49
48 Richard Solomon, “Looking Overseas to Solve Japan’s Labor Shortage,” The Japanese Times, 2019,
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/11/08/commentary/japan-commentary/looking-overseas-solve-japans-labor-shortage/#.Xg91ei1x-uU.
49 Shogo Nishiguchi et al., “Theatrical Approach: Designing Human-like Behaviour in Humanoid Robots,” Robotics and Autonomous
1.3.1 What’s in a name? Political representation and gaining agency through
performativity
I have very carefully used the pronoun ‘it’ to refer to Geminoid F, or the term ‘artificial character’, to avoid any confusion. However, the figure ‘behind’ Geminoid F, is commonly referred to as an ‘actroid’. The term ‘actroid’ was coined in Japan, also at the University of Osaka, and is used to describe a female-gendered performative android, usually modeled after an average-looking young woman from Japanese descent. The actroid is produced in Japan, which is the
reason most actroids have a Japanese appearance – however, this choice is not completely a-political. The question of mimesis rises; who gets represented and why? In this case, it might be obvious that the actroid is modeled after Japanese women. However, since Japan is leading within the field of performative robots, actroids from other parts of the world also get remodeled after the Japanese standard. It could be that this causes actroids to appear more ‘neutral’ when modeled after the Japanese standard, as was revealed by the Dutch theatre maker Dries Verhoeven when he was questioned about the appearance of his actroid Amy in his latest installation Happiness (2019) in Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant.50
The name of the character of the actroid is not mentioned in the piece itself; however, in interviews, it is referenced to as 'Geminoid F’. Is the character name Geminoid F? Or is it also referred to as such when she is not performing, thus not portraying its character? The distinction between the two seems silly at first, because, of course, the sole purpose of the actroid is to be the character. Or, in other words: it is nothing but the character.
However, maybe a distinction between the two can be made when looking at the actroid as a performative being. At first, the notion of performativity in Geminoid F seems problematic, because it brings up the notion of agency. However, when looking at the concept of iterability and citationality in a Derridean fashion, namely the ability to be reproduced in different contexts,51 there might be a way Geminoid F can be looked at as having an entity of its own.
50 Herien Wensink, “Voor Zijn Nieuwste ‘Voorstelling’ Creëerde Kunstenaar Dries Verhoeven Een Mensachtige Robot Die Een Drugsloket
Bestiert. Waarom?,” De Volkskrant, July 25, 2019.
51 Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context,” Limited Inc, 1977, 1–23, https://doi.org/10.1007/SpringerReference_24820.
Fig. 1: scene photo of Sayonara. Photographer: Tatsuo Nambu (2011)
Derrida applied these terms to language and communication theory. However, when applying this theory to Geminoid F as being an iteration of a human actress, there is some leeway to interpret Geminoid F as a performative being with an agency of its own. Let me elaborate on this idea, following Derrida’s reasoning: in this play, the artificial character is seen in some ways as an imperfect human (for example: not being able to sense directly which type of poetry the young woman would like, needing a reset after the young woman dies). Geminoid F can, therefore, be seen as a parasite on the human being – a metaphor drawn from Austin's non-serious speech act.52 However, can Geminoid F be seen as an iteration of the human, in its
behavior, body, speech, movements – in its whole being? This means that it is not parasitic upon its being – it is an entity of its own. In this way, Geminoid F can arguably have an agency of its own, since it is not the objective to have the artificial character perfectly copy a human – just to have it iterated, with its changes and modifications as a core characteristic of this iterability. In this way, with an own prescribed and persevering agency (conatus, after Jane Bennett as described in the theoretical framework)53, Geminoid F can be seen as having agency
and also thus of performing a role, since it either 'performing', or not – being on, or off.
1.3.2 A ‘second choice’? Provoking empathy through language and its tragic faith How does the artificial character relate to the human character in terms of corporeality? The young woman does not move much. She is more flexible than Geminoid F, though – sitting in a chair, and taking on a few different ‘lazy’ positions in that chair. Her tone of voice is not that much more expressive than the voice of Geminoid F – in that way, they mirror each other quite closely. Geminoid F sits on a stool, quite straight, and can only slightly move her head and hands. This gives her a calm persona – opposed to the young woman, who indeed seems quite ill, with no strength in her body, the actroid looks strong and stable, but still, restricted, since a power cord is seen which is attached to the actroid, depriving her of any (possible) future movement. However, because of the mise-en-scene, the audience has a better outlook on the actroid, looking at things from the perspective of the young woman.
When looking a bit more closely at the artificial character, we see that in the theatrical narrative, Geminoid F has been assigned to one task: to comfort the dying women. The artificial character achieves this by reciting poetry to this young woman. When the young woman dies, the task of the artificial character is to recite poetry to the dead in Fukushima. Geminoid F is presented as being rather a replacement, a second-choice, and inauthentic; built to replace the
52 J L Austin, How to Do Things with Words, The William James Lectures, vol. 2, 1962, https://doi.org/10.2307/3326622. 53 Bennett, Vibrant Matter : A Political Ecology of Things.
human connection in the most challenging times.In the very naturalistic style of the CCTT that Hirata enforces in Sayonara, the audiences witness a kind of imitation of the ordinary but also a critique of realism that makes the ordinary ‘special’ and very much theatrical.Hirata does not allow the audience to remain an emotional distance to the ‘inauthentic’ representation of human connection that is represented through the form of Geminoid F. Rather, Geminoid F, who could be labeled as the protagonist of this piece, is provoking feelings of empathy from the audience. This happens through mere form, but also through content – Geminoid F has the most lines in this piece, and by speaking, it reveals information about itself and the other character, allowing the audience to establish a connection with it. This also happens through the reciting of the poetry, which is filled with emotions – it gives Geminoid F a liveliness through these words. Arguably, the empathy also establishes itself through Geminoid F’s tragic inability to recite the right poems (after Geminoid F recites her first poem, she asks the young woman if she felt uplifted by it, and she answers, “Not really.”), being unable to fulfill her one task perfectly. This flaw in her inability to be comforting gives Geminoid F a human trait; making errors. This disconnect in the relationship between Geminoid F and the young woman is humorous, but also quite painful: somehow it shows how out of touch Geminoid F is with the young woman’s feelings and reactions, even though they have supposedly known each other for a long time now.
Geminoid F also provokes empathy by her willingness to love: "even if I am alone… I hope I will have at least one person that I love. Even if that person is already dead. I hope that I will have memories that I will never be able to forget. From somewhere comes a scent of the ocean. And I will surely, go even further than the ocean. From somewhere, comes a scent of the ocean. And I will surely, go even further than the ocean." In this poetic language, a genuine willingness to belong lingers and plays on the emotions of the audience. However, the real tragedy is that, of course, Geminoid F is an android and will thus never be able to love like her master will since she is programmed only to perform the way she has to. In this tragedy also lies the paradox of the most prominent theme of this performance piece: death. While the young woman eventually dies, and everybody already knows that will eventually happen since that is the sole purpose Geminoid F is actually there, Geminoid F is confronted with her own immortality when her master dies. In this way, Geminoid F can be regarded as a hyperobject, as defined in the introductory chapter, unable to cease. So much so, that when the technician comes to the stage, he finds the robot malfunctioning, unable to stop talking. It could be stated that Geminoid F, at that moment, is having some kind of small death of her own – the malfunctioning could be anthropomorphized by the audiences and interpreted as emotional
distress. When the technician explains what her task will be ("you are going to a place where there are no people. We want you to keep reciting poems there. Many people died there, but we
can’t go there, and we can't recite poetry to them"), her tragic faith of the eternal job that is being decided for it is touching, even though Geminoid F seems quite content with finally, again, being able to fulfill her purpose (“If I can be useful, even in this state, then I am very happy”).
Conclusion
The liminality that Geminoid F provides leaves it as a mysterious protagonist. In the poetry, but also in the tragic fate of the artificial character, an anthropomorphization of the actroid is noticeable, although it might be slightly different within a Japanese context knowing that in old tradition is believed that many lifeless things possess a type of ‘spirit’. With the CCTT that Hirata uses in his performances, he tries to erase the differences between the human and the artificial character. The audience may reflect upon to which degree the human actors actually differs from the robotic actors when they realize that the human actors are programmed and controlled in a way similar to the robots. Naturalism as an aesthetic framework becomes an experimental form; it is used as an epistemological tool for reflections that makes aware of broader issues, such as questioning the fundamental issue of what is “natural” or “normal” in human beings.
The artificial character of Geminoid F gains (persevering) agency through its performative power, and with the use of poetic language and its tragic faith in the theatrical narrative, provokes feelings of empathy. However, the posthuman focus in this performance still hinges on an anthropomorphized image of the artificial character, which makes it not-so-posthuman. It would be interesting to see Geminoid F reflecting upon its own being in this role that it has been assigned to – instead of Geminoid F reflecting upon the situation that it has been put in. Funny enough, since this is not (entirely) happening, Geminoid F remains in the naturalistic setting that it is in, not acknowledging its artificial nature but remaining an ‘imperfect human’ for a great deal of the performance, and thus, the performance comes across as more ‘artificial’ than ‘natural’.
While the use of the artificial character in this performance remains relatively simple – that is, there are no multiple (philosophical) levels to uncover within this 25 minute-performance, perhaps, the most interesting questions Hirata asks are concerning care-taker roles in the Japanese society. With this performance, he puts Japans’ technological developments in the foreground, being both critical and loving towards one of the countries’ most important
industries for the roles it might fulfill in a not-so-distant future. And indeed, Hirata’s robot theatre projects are intended to show how Japanese people might engage in a dialogue with a robot as if it were ‘k_uki ga yomenai hito’ (a person who cannot ‘read the room’, often described colloquially in Japan as ‘ KY’), in other words, an unpredictable outsider or social other.54
2. Representation and metaphysical mimicry inUncanny Valley
In Uncanny Valley (2018) (German title: Unheimliches Tal) by Rimini Protokoll/Stefan Kaegi, an artificial character is presented, resembling the German writer Thomas Melle. In a lecture-performance of ±60 minutes, Thomas Melle’s doppelgänger explains what it is doing and why it is made. The title of the performance refers to the well-known theory of Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori.55 The theory refers to the curve in feelings from humans towards
anthropomorphic objects/animations/robots, and how this changes once the resemblances to actual human beings become too eerie. The theory states that if artists drafted characters that are perceived as being vaguely human (for
example, a blinking car or a speaking squirrel), people would find them endearing. If the artists created a character with a hyper realistic quality, the character would also be adored. But, if the character was something in between, it would scare and repel people. Think of zombies in movies, but also clowns, or computer-generated animations in movies (for
example, the half-cat half-human characters in the 2019 movie-version of the musical Cats, which critics found to be especially cringe-worthy because of the Uncanny Valley effect that the characters provoked).56 Stefan Kaegi, one of the three artists that make up the
theatre-collective Rimini Protokoll, directed this piece and co-wrote it with Thomas Melle himself. For over 20 years, Rimini Protokoll has been developing works mostly without actors. They devise pieces that are experienced-based and rely heavily on technology. Most of their work would be categorized as ‘documentary theatre’. Rimini Protokoll has received critical acclaim over the past decades, claiming their spot in the European contemporary theatre scene.
I have seen the performance live on May 24th, 2019, in Theater Kikker in Utrecht as a
part of SPRING Performing Arts Festival. I also have access to a video-registration of the performance. The following summary and analysis of the performance will, therefore, be based on both performances and my initial notes during the performance.
55 M Mori, K F Macdorman, and N Kageki, “The Uncanny Valley [From the Field],” IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine 19, no. 2
(2012): 98–100, https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2012.2192811.
56 Simran Hans, “Cats Review – Will Haunt Viewers for Generations,” The Guardian, December 21, 2019,
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/21/cats-review-tom-hooper-taylor-swift-judi-dench-idris-elba-jennifer-hudson-ian-mckellen.
Fig. 2: Schematic depiction of the Uncanny Valley-effect. Graph by Masahiro Mori (1970).
