Inspired animism
In the 1940s, Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel created a simple geometric animation to study human perception of social interaction. Inspired by this artist and interactive architecture, lecturer Ruairi Glynn has gathered a team of experts in robotics engineering, puppetry, lighting design and architecture to create an installation, called Fearful Symmetry. In the newly opened space called The Tanks at the Tate Modern, Glynn’s delta robot, normally found on factory production lines, has been redesigned to work as a piece of interactive, performance art, encouraging participants to explore their relationship to a simple animate object.

The installation measures people's movements with Microsoft Kinect cameras. When visitors approach, the robot responds with a set of pre-programmed reactions, from playful movements, to dramatic withdrawal. They chose a tetrahedron shape because of its minimal simplicity and trilateral symmetry, which is rare in nature.  Glynn says, ‘the fact that it’s white light, again not really found in nature, it’s almost saying I am not natural.’

Puppetry skills
Taking the simple lead of turning a space that is dormant in to one that is alive, Glynn based his work on the premise that movement is something that we perceive before colour form and texture. He explains, ‘there is something very primal about this whole experience of meeting something in a space and it’s coming to life and your whole mind trying to deal with that.’ Also fascinated by puppetry, Glynn drew on this skill of turning anything into a living thing with a personality.

Social connection
At first, people were intimidated by the experience. When they enter the space they are greeted by the robot floating in the darkness and a great wall of sound, created by the amplified sounds of the robot’s movement. As if aware of their presence the robot moves around the visitors, as if looking at them. Through this connection a relationship is established that Glynn describes as ‘more companion-like than alien’. He continues, ‘there’s a transformation and difficult traumatic period between the moment of something you think is inanimate and something you wouldn’t expect being animate and trying to deal with that.’

For now Glynn is continuing his Sociable Asymmetry project, examining things that move and using these for performance opportunities within architecture. For him interactive architecture is finding new ways to bring architecture to life.