UCL’s Interactive Architecture Lab has developed a new type of choreography – one that explores the potential for dialogue between humans and robots – and the way we might design cooperatively in the future.

Fabricating Performance is the brainchild of students Syuko Kato and Vincent Huyghe and brings together their respective specialisms of dance and robotic systems, under the supervision of the Lab’s director, Ruairi Glynn.

Inspired by existing notational languages in dance, Fabricating Performance evolves what have traditionally been graphic, symbolic systems and proposes a new way of interpreting and representing movement, through the generation of architectural-­‐scale sculptures. To achieve this, Huyghe and Kato have designed a live custom-­‐fabrication system, which combines methods of designing dance and architecture and turns robots into creative collaborators.

Through the system, a dancer’s gestures are captured as motion-­‐data and interpreted into manufacturing protocols. These protocols become instructions that guide the fabrication of physical representations of the dance, which then exist within a shared arena. Repeating this process creates a continuous and constantly changing conversation between human and robot, turning both into equally influential participants in an unique, interactive and iterative performance.

On Fabricating Performance, Syuko says, “As an architect who has always wanted to bring my passion for dance together with my practice as a designer, this hybrid project enables me to create fascinating and unexpected results.”

Fabricating Performance is announced ahead of the Bartlett launching its new Masters programme ‘MArch Design for Performance & Interaction’.