After HUANG YI & KUKA’s incredibly modern performance a couple weeks ago, I walked out of Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center thinking back to an analog moment in the late 1960’s when a poem presaged this ideal balance between robot and human: Richard Brautigan’s “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”. I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky. I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms. I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace. If ever there has been one, Huang Yi’s KUKA appears to be the manifestation of Brautigan’s imaginary machine. From start to finish, there was such sympathy between Huang Yi, his two dancers (Hu Chien and Lin Jou-Wen), and the surprisingly anthropomorphic KUKA robot. Built for tasks such as welding and […]
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