Performing the Intelligent Machine & random tangents...

This article is proving to be a valuable resource in terms of my studio progressing. The article speaks of an automaton chess player built by Wolfgang de Kempelen in 1769 that was essentially a mechanical puppet. The concept of machine as human and human as machine is discussed throughout which intrigues me because where is the line drawn between the two or at one point does a machine become human and visa versa. The chess player is a coming together of theatre and machine which I find relates to the objects that I used for my vivisections at the end of September which were essentially toy machines meant for the entertainment of children, which basically sounds the same as a theatre experience - for the pleasure of the viewer.

Mark Sussman speaks of the Chess Player as provoking mystery and secrecy which I can relate to the readings that I have been doing regarding magic because the performance of a magician provokes these exact emotions in their audience. I really like the idea of the machine being able to be a form of entertainment as well as a sort of riddle or imitation of something other than what it is.

The objects that I am using are inanimate yet they seem to have a life of their own, is this lifelike quality provided by the fact that they are machines or is it because they need to be interacted with, one without the other doesn't take place at the moment, their movements are dependant on weather or not I press their sensors. I keep coming back to the idea of my mechanical toys becoming performers of theatre. Together I have been able to cause one to activate the other through circuitry, has this caused the one toy to become more machine or human than the other because I am taken out of the equation? Mark Sussman states in the article that the relationship of authority between people and objects is constantly questioned yet is always set back into a rational state because of their natural hierarchy, but what happens when there isn't a hierarchy, or the distinction between man and machine is blurred?

In puppet theatre humans are the ones hidden behind a curtain using mechanical and manual sources for entertainment, but what happens when the human is taken out of the equation and machines are placed behind the curtain to control objects that imitate human life - is this still entertainment and can we as humans relate to it as we have been taken out of the position of control?

Random thoughts...

I am now in the position that I want to begin the transformation of my objects beyond inanimate objects of play and towards being performers of theatre. I'm maybe not completely sure how I'm going to do this yet but there always seems to be an unknown and right now I'm ok with that!