Anthropomorphic Machine
In Collaboration with STELARC

The Anthropomorphic Machine is an interactive and performative robotic installation. It is  engineered with pneumatically actuated rubber muscles, steel tendons, a deformable tensegrity skeletal structure, a circulatory system of compressed air, and a vision and computational system. It is a synthetic organisation allowing an emergence of form through an open system of collective behaviours including local and remote human presence and actions. When under the tensegrity canopy, the vision system detects density, distribution and dynamics of people beneath the tensegrity canopy and the Anthropomorphic Machine responds with either undulating, swaying, pulsing or glitchy behaviour, generating a vocabulary of machine aliveness. Anyone, from anywhere, at any time can interact online, viewing their choreography via the multicamera live streaming.  The Anthropomorphic Machine is not only a visual structure but also a sound machine. The choreography that is generated by its interaction composes the compressed air sounds and solenoid clicks, immersing the audience in its acoustical landscape.

This project builds on Stelarc's fascination with the body and the potential to disassociate its functions. In collaboration with LLDS, the project explores a machine body as an organization of parts that has the potential to self-regulate, through its robot vision and deformable structure. The project proposes an alternative anatomical architecture and interrogates what it means for architecture to be a self-regulated system – a body without organs.

 
Media:
Northover, Kylie 2022. Say hello to the new CBD ‘creature’ that can be controlled by anyone in the world in The Age, 4th August 2022. Available online.
Science Gallery Melbourne, Link.

Anthropomorphic Machine at the Science Gallery, The Sydney Morning Herald, 5th August 2022. Link.

Collaborators:
Design and prototyping team: Yuhan Hou and Haoyu Chen (LLDS)

Computer Vision: Quishi Zhou and Eduardo Velloso (Melbourne School of Engineering)

Electronical engineering: Eric Schoof (Melbourne School of Engineering)

Structure Engineer: Sascha Bohnenberger and Matthew Tam (Bollinger Grohmann)

Material testing: Steve Adams (Melbourne School of Engineering)

Fabricator: Callan Morgan, Pelican Studio

Website design: Florence tang and Melana Uceda

Sponsor Partnership: Festo

Science Gallery Team: Ryan Jefferies, Elsie Brokensha, Jack Farley, Niels Wouters