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2023 | Book

Emergent Cultural Ecologies in Social Robotics Read chapter Read first chapter

Cultural Robotics: Social Robots and Their Emergent Cultural Ecologies

Editors: Belinda J. Dunstan, Jeffrey T. K. V. Koh, Deborah Turnbull Tillman, Scott Andrew Brown

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : Springer Series on Cultural Computing

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This edited collection approaches the field of social robotics from the perspective of a cultural ecology, fostering a deeper examination of the reach of robotic technology into the lived experience of diverse human populations, as well as the impact of human cultures on the development and design of these social agents.

To address the broad topic of Cultural Robotics, the book is sectioned into three focus areas: Human Futures, Assistive Technologies, and Creative Platforms and their Communities. The Human Futures section includes chapters on the histories and future of social robot morphology design, sensory and sonic interaction with robots, technology ethics, material explorations of embodiment, and robotic performed sentience. The Assistive Technologies section presents chapters from community-led teams, and researchers working to adopt a strengths-based approach to designing assistive technologies for those with disability or neurodivergence. Importantly, this section contains work written by authors belonging to those communities. Creative Platforms and their Communities looks to the creative cross-disciplinary researchers adopting robotics within their art practices, those contributing creatively to more traditional robotics research, and the testing of robotics in non-traditional platforms such as museum and gallery spaces.

Cultural Robotics: Social Robots and their Emergent Cultural Ecologies makes a case for the development of social robotics to be increasingly informed by community-led transdisciplinary research, to be decentralised and democratised, shaped by teams with a diversity of backgrounds, informed by both experts and non-experts, and tested in both traditional and non-traditional platforms. In this way, the field of cultural robotics as an ecological approach to encompassing the widest possible spectrum of human experience in the development of social robotics can be advanced.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Emergent Cultural Ecologies in Social Robotics
Abstract
This chapter introduces the edited collection Cultural Robotics: Social Robots and their Emergent Cultural Ecologies. We present and describe the three themes that we see as contemporarily emergent within cultural robotics research: human futures, assistive technology, and creative platforms and their communities. With these themes demarcating the publication, we canvas the contributions to each section. We offer a new lens for examining the reach of social robotics, that of cultural ecology, where consideration for the broader political, economic, and social factors impacted by this field become inseparable to our evaluation of it. We argue for the development of social robotics to be increasingly informed by community-led transdisciplinary research, to be decentralised and democratised, shaped by teams with a diversity of backgrounds, informed by both experts and non-experts, and tested in both traditional and non-traditional platforms.
Jeffrey T. K. V. Koh, Belinda J. Dunstan

Human Futures

Frontmatter
Chapter 2. Social Robot Morphology: Cultural Histories of Robot Design
Abstract
Social robot morphologies are not conceived in a void but build on cultural trajectories of artifact design that precede them. We suggest three design tropes that are predominant in many robots morphological design choices: the human replica, the futuristic machine, and the cute companion. We discuss the first two of these tropes in the context of their historical origins, and the third from a contemporary lens. For all three, we present cultural implications of the aesthetic typologies to emphasize the critical importance of conscious engagement with these contexts when designing social robots.
Belinda J. Dunstan, Guy Hoffman
Chapter 3. The Robot Soundscape
Abstract
As social robots make their way into human environments, they need to communicate with the humans around them in rich and engaging ways. Sound is one of the core modalities of communication and, beyond speech, affects and engages people across cultures and language barriers. While a growing body of work in human–robot interaction (HRI) investigates the various ways it affects interactions, a comprehensive map of the many approaches to sound has yet to be created. In this chapter, we therefore ask “What are the ways robotic agents can communicate with us through sound?”, “How does it affect the listener?” and “What goals should researchers, practitioners and designers have when creating these languages?” These questions are examined with reference to HRI studies, and robotic agents developed in commercial, artistic and academic contexts. The resulting map provides an overview of how sound can be used to enrich human–robot interactions, including sound uttered by robots, sound performed by robots, sound as background to HRI scenarios, sound associated with robot movement, and sound responsive to human actions. We aim to provide researchers and designers with a visual tool that summarises the role sound can play in creating rich and engaging human–robot interactions and hope to establish a common framework for thinking about robot sound, encouraging robot makers to engage with sound as a serious part of the robot interface.
Frederic Anthony Robinson, Oliver Bown, Mari Velonaki
Chapter 4. Reimagining Robots
Abstract
The fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial life (ALife) and the increasing presence of robots and automata are having a large impact on society’s organization, values and beliefs. Although the desire to create and reproduce life is certainly not new, the fantasy of artificial intelligence and life is a powerful and contradictory one, embodying the longstanding desire to transcend the physical body and the material conditions of material existence, while presenting these other life forms—robots, cyborgs, automatons—primarily in the human image. In this chapter, I will explore the often-complicated relationships between robots, automata, humans, plants and animals. Implicit in this paper is my understanding of robots as cultural and social beings and of the ethics in creating machine life that is not necessarily productive in the usual sense of the word. As an artist, I have been making automata and emotional machines for the last fifteen years, and in this chapter, I will explore these ideas the through the lens of my artworks. Contemporary robots, often including those made by artists, tend to retain a certain formal purity, consisting of hard, metallic, skeletal, usually humanoid forms. I am interested in furry robots, clothed robots, messy robots, emotional robots and in inserting these ‘beings’ into a rich natural, social, political and cultural matrix, where their actions are influenced by environmental, non-human factors, as well as human elements. Many of the issues presented in this research creation project have been formulated in works such as The Angry Machine, Messy Entanglements and Pelt (Bestiary).
Ingrid Bachmann
Chapter 5. Data, Site, Materials: Robotics and Digital Fabrication Within Installation Art
Abstract
This chapter describes two practice-based research projects that render self-tracking data as installation artworks: NAVSTAR (2020) and Dendro/Volume (2020). For both works, personal data is collected and rendered as artworks within white cube exhibition spaces. These two artworks relate to practices of data physicalisation, where robotic fabrication is used to translate data into physical artefacts. However, both NAVSTAR and Dendro/Volume depart from more conventional approaches to data visualisation that focus on creating visual patterns and generating actionable insights into health data. Instead, I use the term data installation to propose a situated approach to rendering health data that draws attention to the relation between materials, site, and data. As I see it, these factors are inherent, though largely underacknowledged, to data physicalisation. Expanding from this position, I suggest that how materials and data relate to specific white cube and non-gallery sites warrants closer attention and offers expanded approaches to data physicalisation practice.
Vaughan Wozniak-O’Connor
Chapter 6. The Future of Non-fungible Tokens: PNFTs as a Medium for Programmatic Art Enabling a Fully Realized AI-Driven Art Ecosystem
Abstract
This chapter outlines the current limitations of art when utilizing non-fungible tokens. We argue that smart contracts, the blockchain, and other distributed ledger technologies can be utilized beyond an index for art metadata, ownership, provenance, or distribution, and has the potential to be a medium for the creation of new artworks based on concepts of generative, algorithmic, conceptual, and process-based artworks. This paves the way for artificial intelligence (AI) to move forward from simply creating artworks via algorithms, neural networks, and other methods, to a potential future where these AI-generated artworks could also be bought, sold, distributed, collected, curated, and exhibited by other AI, thereby creating a completely virtual, AI-driven art ecosystem.
Jeffrey T. K. V. Koh

Assistive Technology

Frontmatter
Chapter 7. From Assistive to Adaptive: Can We Bring a Strengths-Based Approach to Designing Disability Technology?
Abstract
Assistive technology is often framed as a problem-solving approach to a medical model of disability. When viewed in this way, disability and neurodiversity are pathologised, demanding a ‘cure’ for afflictions that position the person as ‘less than’. In this chapter, we explore the potential of assistive technology to augment and empower the user. We take the position that a strengths based, social model of disability is not only more effective in helping us develop assistive technologies, but it also places the user at the centre of the design process. This community-led approach to research and design recognises the value of lived experience in understanding and overcoming the many mismatches between people with a disability and their environment. In investigating this position, we will look not only at novel research projects with disabled and neurodivergent people, but also the ethics of cultural robotics and AI in human research more broadly. We will question the proposition that emerging technology is being positioned as a ‘silver bullet’ solution to many cognitive impairments and look at a range of embodied human–machine interactions that point to what the future may hold for the field of assistive technology. This chapter will examine a range of perspectives on cultural robotics in therapeutic and educational contexts and include the voices of people for whom these technologies claim to support.
Scott Andrew Brown
Chapter 8. The Intersection of Social Impact, Technology and Design: A Catalyst for Cultural Change
Abstract
Technology is deeply ingrained in our lives to the point where it has shaped our perspectives and changed the way we think, the way we act, and the way we behave. But, what happens when we add disability to the equation? When the use of technology and the needs of disability collide, it is defined as assistive technology. But is there any difference between technology and assistive technology? Should there be a difference? As a user experience designer, a researcher, a board of director, a woman in tech and a person living with a physical disability, my work has predominately been focused on the intersection of technology, innovation and social change. This chapter explores how the power of technology, design and innovation can be harnessed to drive a cultural shift in the way our society perceives disability. More importantly, how it helps shift our society’s focus from the medical model of disability to the social model.
Melanie Tran
Chapter 9. Culture in Social Robots for Education
Abstract
Education is one of the predominant applications that is foreseen by researchers in social robotics. In this context, social robots are often designed to interact with one or several learners and with teachers. While educational scenarios for social robots have been studied widely, with experiments being conducted in several countries for nearly 20 years, the cultural impact of accepting social robots in classrooms is still unclear. In this paper, we review the literature on social robots for education with the lens of cultural sensitivity and adaptation. We discuss culture theories and their application in social robotics and highlight research gaps in terms of culture-sensitive design and cultural adaptation in social robots assisting learners in terms of (1) the robot’s role, (2) envisioned tasks, and (3) interaction types. We also present guidelines for designing cross-cultural robots and culturally adaptive systems.
Barbara Bruno, Aida Amirova, Anara Sandygulova, Birgit Lugrin, Wafa Johal
Chapter 10. Towards an Autistic User Experience (aUX) Design for Assistive Technologies
Abstract
User experience (UX) design aims to support people interacting with a particular product or service. However, the perspective applied to designing a user experience is generally framed by the life experiences of the designer. This means that oftentimes, marginalised groups are not supported in terms of their unique values and understanding of the world around them. In the case of autistic people, experiences within the social and built environment are not only unique, but often very pronounced. In this chapter, we explore what an approach to UX might look like with the input of autistic people. We propose a framing of autistic user experience (aUX) as a way forward that might improve experiences with technology not only for autistic people, but the UX community as a whole.
Sebastian Trew, Scott Andrew Brown
Chapter 11. Drone Swarms to Support Search and Rescue Operations: Opportunities and Challenges
Abstract
Emergency services organizations are committed to the challenging task of saving people in distress and minimizing harm across a wide range of events, including accidents, natural disasters, and search and rescue. The teams responsible for these operations use advanced equipment to support their missions. Given the risks and the time pressure of these missions, however, adopting new technologies requires careful testing and preparation. Drones have become a valuable technology in recent years for emergency services teams employed to locate people across vast and difficult to traverse terrains. These unmanned aerial vehicles are faster and cheaper to deploy than traditional crewed aircraft. While an individual drone can be helpful to personnel by quickly offering a bird’s eye view, future scenarios may allow multiple drones working together as a swarm to reduce the time required to locate a person. Given these potentially high payoffs, we explored the challenges and opportunities of drone swarms in search and rescue operations. We conducted interviews as well as initial user studies with relevant stakeholders to understand the challenges and opportunities for drone swarms in the context of search and rescue. Through this, we gained insights to inform the development of prototypes for drone swarm control interfaces, including both technical and human interaction concerns. While drone swarms can likely benefit search and rescue operations, the significant shift from single drones to swarms may necessitate reimagining how rescue missions are conducted. We distill our findings into five key research challenges: visualization, situational awareness, technical issues, team culture, and public perception. We discuss initial steps to investigate these further.
Maria-Theresa Oanh Hoang, Kasper Andreas Rømer Grøntved, Niels van Berkel, Mikael B Skov, Anders Lyhne Christensen, Timothy Merritt

Creative Platforms and Their Communities

Frontmatter
Chapter 12. Culture and Technology: Curating New Media in Collaborative Ways
Abstract
This chapter highlights a collaborative approach to curating robotic art that can occur due to the disruptive, responsive and interdisciplinary nature of its mediums and practitioners. Each of the case studies presented speaks to the exploratory capability of the artists, designers and engineers of this contemporary art form. Due to the experiential nature of the medium, the necessity for specialist (curator) and subject (artist/artwork) in the curator-artist relationship can be disrupted in favor of working together to facilitate experiences, stage experiments, build data, and extend often tension-filled experimental public practice into part of the cultural experience. Simply put, there is more than one expert at the table when these exhibitions are designed for human engagement.
Deborah Turnbull Tillman
Chapter 13. Soft Robotics Workshops: Supporting Experiential Learning About Design, Movement, and Sustainability
Abstract
Soft Robotics is a class of robotics in which flexible materials make up some or all parts of the structure. Soft materials afford more flexibility than the rigid materials used in traditional robots, enabling new shapes, sizes, and interactions across a range of applications. From a pedagogical perspective, soft robotics is a good entry point for teaching robotics due to its simplicity and low production costs. Students can get started with programming a robot of their own design in a very short time, which provides a good case study for increasing accessibility in education. For the past five years, we have incorporated studio-based courses on soft robotics in an undergraduate education of Art and Technology, and most recently in a transdisciplinary workshop focused on robots and sustainability. Results from several iterations of the course help to identify key challenges and pedagogical opportunities for developing and teaching transdisciplinary courses in higher education. We contribute guidelines for conducting a successful soft robotics course that supports transdisciplinary teaching and learning activities that foster critical engagement with sustainability. We discuss the integration of different types of knowing and doing, and propose art-based and design-based research methods as useful tools for developing sustainability in transdisciplinary settings. We outline activities that support learning outcomes including digital fabrication, expressive movement, embodied interaction, and design for sustainability. We conclude by mapping future development and open questions linking soft robotics, sustainability, and creative expression with the aim of integrating cultural and sustainable principles throughout the design process.
Anca-Simona Horvath, Elizabeth Jochum, Markus Löchtefeld, Karina Vissonova, Timothy Merritt
Chapter 14. Sonic Robotics: Musical Genres as Platforms for Understanding Robotic Performance as Cultural Events
Abstract
This chapter examines how artist Wade Marynowsky’s recent robotic performance art projects are framed within musical genres: Opera, in Robot Opera (2015), Ambient/Glitch, in Synthesiser-Robot (2017); and Disco, in The Ghosts of Roller Disco (2020). By positioning the projects within known music genres, the research expands the canon of Cultural Robotics by providing platforms that allow wider communities to understand the presentation of robotic performance as cultural events within a historical context. Notions of robotic agency, dramaturgy, choreography, robotic musical gesture, and robotic musicianship are explored across three case studies, which are presented in the contexts of live performance festivals and durational exhibitions: (1) Robot Opera, a dramaturgically designed, interactive opera for eight, larger than life-sized robots; (2) Synthesiser-Robot, a solo autonomous robot performance for a repurposed industrial robot arm, theUR3, and a hardware-software interface, the Ableton Push; and (3) The Ghosts of Roller Disco, a choreographed performance for eight robotic roller skates. The research highlights the importance of robotic agency by applying autonomous and interactive movement, localised sound, and surround sound design in creating immersive and engaging robotic performance art experiences.
Wade Marynowsky, Julian Knowles, Oliver Bown, Sam Ferguson
Chapter 15. Rouge and Robot: The Disruptive Feminine
Abstract
In future worlds, robots will participate and collaborate in human activities, and deeply interact with humans through personal, intimate and immediate actions around and even on the human body. Taking feminine rituals of grooming the body and highlighting body attributes as a focus, we investigate the intersection of biological and machine moving bodies, exploring vulnerable moments of touch. Introducing a robot into an entrenched cultural act that references the universal female is a disruptive, critical tactic for rethinking dominant approaches to human–robot collaboration. Through a Deleuzian analysis of our video artwork code_red (2021), we propose an alternative theoretical interpretation of the interaction between an industrial robotic arm and a female figure. We then turn to a broader consideration of how this particular analysis ties back into current thinking in collaborative, industrial and social robotics, through a discussion of concepts of breaching the intimate zone, resonance, and micro-gestures in human–robot relations.
Lian Loke, Dagmar Reinhardt
Chapter 16. On Display: Robots as Culture
Abstract
Robots are necessarily transdisciplinary things. Like everything that occupies that space in-between our taxonomies, or that third space, they can evoke strong feelings of curiosity or fear. The elements of variance and verisimilitude they can embody create a distance, another space, wherein curators can draw attention to the cultural aspects of robotics by researching and displaying the ‘stuff’ of robotics in cross-disciplinary contexts, such as exhibitions. This chapter will focus on the exhibitions of artist Mari Velonaki and Deborah Turnbull Tillman (in collaboration with fellow curators) whereby elements of robotics have come into proximity with exhibitions on art, design, computers and engineering. Their display in the context of collaborative making, audience engagement and notions of authenticity makes them social, and by extension, cultural.
Deborah Turnbull Tillman, Mari Velonaki
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Cultural Robotics: Social Robots and Their Emergent Cultural Ecologies
Editors
Belinda J. Dunstan
Jeffrey T. K. V. Koh
Deborah Turnbull Tillman
Scott Andrew Brown
Copyright Year
2023
Electronic ISBN
978-3-031-28138-9
Print ISBN
978-3-031-28137-2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28138-9