Geometry = Personality

Unlikely Creatures with Marcela Delgado & Brainerd Taylor

We humans have a remarkable inclination to see ourselves in animate objects.  When an object moves in some irregular way, we find it almost impossible to restrain our tendency to anthropomorphize, projecting emotion, intent and personality onto each jitter and wobble.  This project is an exploration of the lower limits of that irregularity of movement.  These three robotic balls use identical simple mechanisms and rudimentary responsive logics as they move through their environment.  Each is differentiated from the others only by the unique faceting of its surface, and these geometric characteristics determine the particular way in which each ball can move.  The facets produce just the sort of halting, nuanced movement that captivates humans and begs to be assigned human traits.