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Until 2014, Frieder Miller studied contemporary puppetry at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch in Berlin. Since the end of her studies, she realized several independent theater works together with the collective manufaktor, such as Pinocchio 2.0 or 1/0/1 robots – hacking the binary code. She collaborated with Tucké Royale, Swoosh Lieu and Armada of Arts, among others. She worked as a lighting technician at various festivals, the Holzmarkt Berlin or for the Chaos Computer Club. Frieder provided lighting support for various theater works, including Simone Dede Ayivi’s production ‘The Kids Are Alright’ at Berlin’s Sophiensælen. She is part of the feminist network Dangerous Work and was selected for the Fellowship Program of the Academy for Digitality and Theater Dortmund 2022.
Our research wants to work on the interaction of robotic and human bodies in theatrical spaces. Manufaktor is a puppet theater collective that has been working with robotic bodies for years.
As puppeteers we know the simultaneity of actively influencing the play of the puppet/object and in turn passively observing it. We are interested in this balancing of perspectives and we want to transfer this to the robotic future of theater.
// a projective space of robot and human creative interactions
Translating the puppeteer’s arm into data.
The goal is to enable an artistic symbiosis between humans and robots. Away from the dystopian narratives that cultivate the human/machine divide. Away from the “uncanny valley” of humanoid robots towards a self-empowerment of robotic bodies.
We are interested in the emotive power enabled by new interactive technologies like computer vision and generative synthesis and how the allow us to feel an emotional effect as we explore spaces where they are implemented and what that will mean for the future of technology and public space
The installation “A projective space” builds on our performance ‘1/0/1 robots – hacking the binary code’. We want to develop our setup further. The stage set with the LED strips attached to it, which serves as a space for the 6 self-balancing robots with LED matrix, as well as, 2 live cameras and projector. The goal is a experimental, playful and exploratory ways in which people might try to appropriate the installation, the emergent complexity between control and speculation and ultimately the balance that is negotiated between human agency and the ungovernable natural world of which machines are now a part of.