The plastic dynamism of the human aesthetic : employing futurist methodologies in the cross-disciplinary design of social robot morphologies

Abstract

“The Plastic Dynamism of the Human Aesthetic” is a critical anatomisation of the aesthetics at play in the morphological design of social robots. The thesis argues for a knowing and consciously engaged approach to the matter and materialisation of non-human bodies in a technologically-driven discipline that is rapidly shaping, and being shaped, by society. Through a survey of social robot morphologies from the last 25 years, it is shown that roboticists are designing robots for increasingly complex and nuanced social roles. A key aim of designers is to blend intangible human and machine qualities within their designs, yet a lack of formal methodologies for designing social robots is evident. A theoretical analysis of the prominent and problematic aesthetic trends within social robotics challenges the iterated and largely uncontested normative typologies that exist today. Employing methodological practices from fine art, a visual analysis comparing the sculptural work of the Italian Futurists (1900–1916) with contemporary social robot morphologies illuminates remarkable similarities and a prevailing ‘futuristic’ aesthetic developed by the Futurists that is still largely present in contemporary social robots. By consciously returning to the practices of the Futurists—from which so much futuristic inspiration has been drawn—methods from this period are appropriated to contribute a practice-based methodology for generating new robot morphologies. It is shown that adopting a diagrammatic approach in the planning stages of social robot morphology design, such as that demonstrated by the Futurists, allows for the hardware, movement and aesthetics of the robot to be considered concurrently. Further, this diagrammatic approach is shown to be both generative and transactional, fostering the codification and transfer of tacit knowledge from within creative disciplines to aid in collaborative multidisciplinary design practices, and generative of designs open to multiple interpretations and potential new morphologies. Reflective practice is engaged to evaluate the artefacts produced as exemplars of the developed design methodology and to argue the importance of interdisciplinary attentiveness to the designed intersection of humans and machines.