A part in a series of mechatronic pieces where I was investigating the manner in which a human can communicate with a machine as a performance. The machine in this case, is a small, round, mechatronic sound sculpture built from sheet metal and baltic birchwood. The piece itself is the playing out of various interactions between the performer and the machine.
What emerges is a task-oriented performance in which the performer is responding to the mechatronics, and in turn the mechatronics are responding to the performer. A relationship is thus created by the cooperation of the two, and as the piece continues the nature of that relationship is described.
Another aspect of performance I am confronting with this piece is the manner in which a performer can incorporate his body into an electronic performance. This problem is described well by the following.
th[is] problem has been reformulated again and again in various ways yet never solved. For the entire problem is just one window into the tension (...) between the human body and the machine. (...) It cannot be solved in the sense of a solution that can make a problem disappear. It can only be experienced in various ways. (...) [A]rtists who use machines must do so critically; not celebrating technology but questioning and probing it, examining its problematic nature, illuminating or clarifying tensions between technology and the body, and thus offering the kinds of insights only art can provide concerning the nature of life._
Bob Ostertag's Human Bodies, Computer Music", Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 12, 2002, pp. 11-14
