Aladdin in the Cave

The Dance Museum in Stockholm is hosting Navigation, seven sensory installations by the choreographer and researcher Åsa Unander-Scharin. The process leading up to “Navigation” started in 1993 when Unander-Scharin got to know about Motographicon, a programming system created by Peter Rajka and Manus Lundin at Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Since she was working with electronic music at the time it felt natural to try to use this system to create choreography. Seven years ago she created “The Lament Of Orpheus” with a medium sized industrial robot, ABB Robot IRB 1400.

In spite of the fact that the machine was performing the movement for which it was constructed the way the movements related to the baroque music made it possible to interpret this as dance. And one aim of Unander-Scharin is to create a new awareness of the process of interpretation, this urge to find a meaning even were there is none, as in the movements of a robot.
Åsa Unander-Scharin also wants to learn more about what it takes to make movements interpreted as human. Even though the ABB robot is only present as a video (If you know an industrial robot in need of a new home, get in touch!) the two ...