Robocygne: Dancing Life into an Animal-Human-Machine

Robocygne is an artistic project that revolves around the development of a custom-built robotic bird, dancing to a remix of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake . The artists created the choreography through a process in which movements were danced into the robot by the choreographer’s manipulation of the bird’s limbs, by hand, to the music. To enable this multitracking procedure, the artists, in collaboration with the engineers, developed novel software that allowed overlying recording of motions in synchronization with an audio track. From an artistic perspective, the authors discuss the search for choreographic and musical qualities and emphasize how material aspects of body and technology interrelate with emotional expression in Robocygne .