Robots Debut in New Opera
Call them operabots. In a marriage of music and media, a team at the MIT Media Lab has infused an opera with robotic technology.
In Death and the Powers, a new opera by Media Lab professor Tod Machover, the main character wishes to leave the physical world, but remain there digitally. He downloads himself into The System and continues to interact with the audience and other characters through robots using a technique Machover invented, called disembodied performance.
On stage the operabots appear more like podiums (podia?) than humans as they roll across the stage. But their movement and artificial emotion is controlled by sensors attached to the main actor who spends most of the show in a concealed booth in the orchestra pit.
His movement, heart rate, and other information is sent on stage to the robots who convey what he is experiencing below.
Known as America’s most wired composer, Machover has been trying to get audiences to see and feel sound for over 30 years.
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