Du laboratoire robotique à la scène : approches intermédiales. Exemple de la collaboration entre Oriza Hirata et Hiroshi Ishiguro

Abstract

Technology has already placed its mark on the contemporary scene and in its theoretical reflection. The advancement of digital technology enables the performance to discover new paths, both aesthetically and in the creative process. In it, the director integrates computers, connects to the Internet and collaborates with computer scientists and engineers. He inevitably enters the path of intermediality and brings together the performing arts and computer sciences, as well as different logics and ways of thinking. In my article, I propose a study of the creative process that begins in a technological laboratory and ends on the stage. To what extent are these two settings totally distinct and separable? Isn’t a lab already a « stage » for a technology performance? Does the stage, in turn, keep a purely artistic dimension? Are we dealing with a porosity of definitions of these places, whose boundaries are becoming blurred? We will evoke these interferences in the intermedial perspective by illustrating our theoretical reflexions with some examples of scenic work. We will focus mainly on the collaboration between the Japanese director Oriza Hirata and the Japanese robotics engineer, Hiroshi Ishiguro: they propose a specific creation process, suited to the complexity of Geminoid F, the humanoid robot.