|
Erwin Driessen & Maria Verstappen
Tickle Salon
The Netherlands
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Tickle Salon
Voice-over test:
When a human being is gently stroking someones back, sooner or later tiredness and slackening will appear. Therefore we developed Tickle Salon: a robotic installation based on the concept of automated stroking. A machine that is able to stroke you with an indefatigable attention and subtleness. Automated stroking is an exciting topic, because it brings together our interests in meta creativity, biology and artificial intelligence, and of course the pleasure of being stroked.
Concept
Tickle Salon is an installation that roughly consists of three parts: A robot attached to the ceiling, a bed standing on the floor and a human being lying on the bed.
The robot uses a suspended probe to grope and feel the surface underneath. Gradually, the robot develops an image of the body that is lying on the bed. Using its imagination, the robot is able to execute sensitive movements over the skin surface. It aims to be smart, smooth and unpredictable.
In the room, a human being is lying on a bed. In between the bed and the ceiling, a suspended feeler is attached to four threads. The feeler can be moved around freely by varying the length of the four threads. This is achieved by computer controlled stepper motors that wind and unwind the treads. The feeler can reach any position in three-dimensional space, in between the bed and the ceiling. At each moment in time, the feeler knows exactly where it is.
When the feeler touches the skin surface, the collision causes a tension loss in one or more threads. This tension change, is detected by sensors . The movement stops and the coordinates of the collision position at the skin surface are stored in a virtual map of that space, inside the computer.
Subsequently, the robot continues its exploration, using the formerly gathered information in its motion behaviour. By doing so, it gently strokes the surface of the body while at the same time, the robot creates and updates its imagination of the shape of that body. A monitor in front of the bed, displays current images of the discovered regions.
In a later stage the map could also be used for interaction with the user, to indicate his or her preferences, on which parts of the body to be stroked or not.
In this installation the notion of feeling is ambiguous: at one hand, there is the feeling of the human being who senses the tingling of the skin. On the other hand, there is the feeling of the robot whose only sense is a feeler. The robot tries to form a three dimensional representation of the body, through touch alone.
|
|
