Event Details

A book launch webinar in which Amy LaViers and Catherine Maguire discuss their new book; Making Meaning with Machines: Somatic Strategies Choreographic Technologies and Notational Abstractions through a Laban/Bartenieff Lens (MIT Press 2023): and offer discussion and experiences regarding the content and applicability of the work in the book to the embodied design space of human robot interaction.


DATE: MAY 3, 2024


TIME:

8:00 - 9:30 AM NEW YORK;

1:00 - 2:30 PM LONDON;

8:00 - 9:30 PM BEIJING.


LOCATION: ZOOM


LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Webinar description

Making Meaning with Machines by Amy LaViers and Catherine Maguire is a rigorous primer in movement studies for designers, engineers, and scientists that draws on the fields of dance and robotics. This webinar will be a book launch in which LaViers and Maguire share and discuss content of book and it's applications at the intersection of embodied design, robotics and dance. 


This book is a rigorous primer in movement studies for designers, engineers, and scientists that draws on the fields of dance and robotics.


How should a gestural interface react to a "flick" versus a "dab"? Versus a "punch"? Should robots reach out to a human counterpart with a direct, telescoping action or through a circuitous arc in space? Just as different movements express the different internal states of human movers, so too can the engineered systems behind robots. ln Making Meaning with Machines, Amy LaViers and Catherine Maguire offer a refreshingly embodied approach to machine design that supports the growing need to make meaning with machines by using the field of movement studies, including choreography, somatics and notation, to engage in the process of designing expressive robots.


Drawing upon the Laban/Bartenieff tradition, LaViers and Maguire sharpen the movement analysis methodology, expanding the material through their work with machines and putting forward new conventions, such as capitalization, naming, and notation schemes, that make the embodied work more legible for academic contexts. The book includes an overview of movement studies, exercises that define the presented taxonomy and principles of movement, case studies in movement analvsis of both humans and robots, and state-of the-art research at the intersection of robotics and dance.


Making Meaning with Machines is a much-needed primer for observing, describing, and creating a wide array of movement patterns, which ultimately can help facilitate broader and better design choices for roboticists, technologists, and designers.

Attendees learning outcomes



  • To become aware of the resources available in the book and the electronic resources at www.makingmeaningwithmachines.com;
  • To explore and experience some of the content of the book;
  • To understand and learn about case use scenarios for the book and its contents relative to the attendees area of application. 

Standard Ticket

Public Price

Non IACAET Member

  • $18.-

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