Interacting with Non-anthropomorphic Robotic Artworks and Interpreting Their Behaviour

Behavioral Objects: The Rise of the Evocative Machines

“…From the fact that an intuitive connection to behavioral objects arises from simple patterns of movements, it is possible to overcome the usual difficulty in social robotics of trying to establish a rich and significant dynamic between humans and robots by focusing on making robots' behavior evocative rather than on putting an emphasis on morphological realism. As seen within contemporary art, the creation of situations involving partially autonomous objects can lead to suggestions of more complex interactions and can also enable the type of relationships underlying these interactions to be determined (Levillain et al, 2016).…”

“…Contemporary art installations involving behavioral objects often play with spectators' expectations, staging objects with an uncertainty surrounding their status, suspended between animate and inanimate, artificial and alive (Bianchini & Quinz, 2016). This uncertainty regarding the ontological status reflects an oscillating social presence that may result from insufficient or ambiguous cues available to the observer to conclude to a genuine agency on the part of the robotic artifact (Levillain et al, 2016). This uncertainty is common to the class of robots.…”

“…Some join in the dance, curious to examine closely each piano's demeanor; some remain more withdrawn and contemplate the ballet from a distance. This scene describes an installation created in 2014 by the French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot that we had the opportunity to study as psychologists interested in the interactions prompted by these animated objects (Levillain, Zibetti, & Lefort, 2016). This installation is an artistic act that breathes life into the inanimate and reinvigorates our relationship to mundane object.…”

Engaging with Robotic Swarms

“…As stated earlier, it is less intuitive to interact with a grouplike entity than an individual, but expressive motions can be leveraged to initiate a connection. In social robotics, a major metric to evaluate engagement is proxemics; the study of how human position with respect to the others (Levillain et al 2017). However, with remote robotic systems, such as drones flying above the user, or robots in remote areas, proxemics can hardly be used.…”

“…In Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), engagement generally refers to the process of creating and maintaining a connection (Levillain et al 2017). A human-robot connection can be achieved with voice communication, user-centered motion (i.e., follow me), or cues given by a graphical user interface.…”