HUANG YI & KUKA

Taiwanese dancer, choreographer and inventor Huang Yi asks an industry robot for a dance. Its name: KUKA. This robotic arm, owned by the Kuka company, is highly efficient – and constitutes a danger zone for us humans. Despite riding along its programmed paths with utmost precision, it cannot see what is happening in its surroundings or react to unforeseen obstacles, unlike a human being.  Huang Yi composes a new stage world for KUKA, one in which everything passes in harmony between human and machine. KUKA’s movements expand into this space via a gleaming laser beam, its movements programmed for a duet with Huang Yi. Their togetherness complemented by dancers Hu Chien and Lin Jou-Wen, they succeed in creating a highly poetic encounter beyond the halls of industrial production, where a decision can no longer be reached as to who might be designated the innovative technician or the unerring precision-attuned machine. At the same time, this fascinating duet between a dancer and his robotic friend, a friend he has always wished for, bears new questions: Can there be affection and nearness between a human and an artificial being?

“HUANG YI & KUKA”, a robot performance that went on to win numerous awards, opened Ars Electronica in Linz in 2013 as well as the Vancouver TED conference in 2017.

Duration 65 min. Attention: Laser beams and strobe effects.