Prostheses

Alia: Zǔ tài (2018)

Eingeweide (2018)

Design

The machines of the 7 Configurations embody uncanny combinations of the machinic with the organic. They are not enough human, and not fully machines. They are useless prostheses, paradoxical objects designed for the body, but not to enhance it, rather to subtract functions from it. The group of machines include a skin-cutting robot with a steel metal knife, a facial prosthesis which blocks the wearer’s gaze with a mechanical arm, and two robotic spines that function as additional limbs without a body.

Conceived, designed, handcrafted and programmed by Marco Donnarumma, with the support of a team of collaborators, the robots are fabricated using custom components and techniques. Each of them was designed according to the anatomy and performative skills of the human performer that would engage with on stage. The prostheses’ morphologies, their materials and functions are, thus, the embodiment of individualised somatic relations between a robot and a performer.

Artificial Intelligence

The prostheses have been created to act as performers with their own agency, that is, to interact with their human partners without being controlled externally. The machines are embedded with biomimetic neural networks, information processing algorithms inspired by biological nervous systems, such as animal or human brains. Developed by Donnarumma in collaboration with the Neurorobotics Research Laboratory (DE), these neural networks endow the machines with artificial cognitive and sensorimotor skills.

Sensory data captured in real time by servo motors enable each prostheses to perceive its own body in space, as well as the bodies of the other performers, and improvise movements in response to external stimuli, such as touch, pressure, pull and torsion. As it moves, a prostheses learns about its partners and environment, constantly modifying its behaviour across time.

Amygdala (2018)

Rei, prosthesis for Eingeweide (2018)