Back Oriol Saladrigues and Martí Sánchez present Q3, a theatrical and sonic action for robots

Oriol Saladrigues and Martí Sánchez present Q3, a theatrical and sonic action for robots

Thursday 24 March, 20h. Sala Aranyó (Campus UPF Poblenou)
17.03.2022

Imatge inicial

On Thursday 24 March we will receive Martí Sánchez and Oriol Saladrigues, who will present their work Q3, selected as a hybrid project in the Barcelona 2021 Awards of the Barcelona City Council. In this session, the authors will present this choreographic and sound work for robots, as well as its direct source of inspiration in the piece QUADRAT I + II by Samuel Beckett, followed by a conversation with the creators.

 

 

A robot is a device designed by human beings to carry out specific and predetermined tasks, as Karel Capek imagined in his play Robots Universals Rossum, where the word Robota is introduced for the first time, in txec, servant. When can we say that a machine is a robot? Well, when it is able to perceive its environment and act accordingly. Developments in artificial intelligence make it possible to create robots capable of making decisions, increasing the degree of freedom of their actions and thus giving them a certain autonomy. For example, they can modify their trajectory depending on what happens around them, or they can understand a text and react to it, both by writing and speaking (synthesising the human voice), among many other things. Since the origins of artificial intelligence research in the 1950s, music has been a privileged means of understanding how our brain works so that it can be modelled and ultimately imitated. In this sense, it has been possible, by means of algorithms, to reproduce the musical style of an epoch or an author, to create music by means of algorithmic processes and even to create an improvised accompaniment according to what a soloist does. We therefore find ourselves in the midst of a process in which the robots we create are becoming more and more like us. Moreover, the fact that they often have a physical constitution reminiscent of the human body, and that their movements are also reminiscent of our own, makes us feel identified with them from a psychological point of view as well. We could say that robots arouse emotions.

Q3 is conceived as a stage play in which the robots perform a choreography and a series of actions, emitting sound from the built-in loudspeakers. The starting point for the design of the choreography is the piece "Quadrat I + II" by Samuel Beckett. In it, four people walk in a mechanical way, always following the same paths inside a square, without ever finding each other. In fact, they never pass through the centre, which would be the only point where they would have to coincide. In this way, they avoid meeting each other, they avoid dialogue, confrontation and conflict, perhaps something that could make them reflect and question their ideas based on interpersonal interaction. The desire to avoid contact is the only thing that leads them to modify their trajectory, making a circular route around this point, serving as a metaphor for what our lives can become without creative thought, without making use of the autonomy that characterises human beings. In Sánchez i Saladrigues' piece, robots act according to two modes of functioning. One mode I would be regular, repetitive, mechanical, the one we see in "Quadrat I + II", and another mode II would be more unpredictable, interactive, giving rise to non-predetermined movements and actions.

Martí Sánchez is a researcher at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and has completed his thesis at the Institute for Research in Artificial Intelligence (IIIA) at the CSIC. His research revolves around neurorobotics and sensorimotor learning. His interests in scientific dissemination and in the relationship between science and art led him to carry out the Teatronika project, a hybrid project with 5 years of experience that brings NAO humanoid robots to the performing arts, representing the winning works of the 3 editions of the Teatronika short script competition. This theatre show with robots was presented at the CCCB as part of the +Humans exhibition in 2015 and premiered at the Terrassa Noves de Tendencias (TNT) festival in 2018.

With a degree in Chemical Engineering (UPC), Oriol Saladrigues is a composer, co-founder and artistic co-director of the Mixtur Festival in Barcelona. Higher Degree in Piano, Musical Language (CSMMB) and Composition (ESMUC). Master in Composition with Electroacoustic Media at the University of Paris8, at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva in collaboration with IRCAM, and at the Accademia Sta Cecilia in Rome. He has received grants from LaCaixa Foundation, Cajamadrid and the Royal Spanish Academy in Rome. In 2018 he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Composition Prize. Between 2013 and 2020 he has been an associate professor at the Department of New Technologies Applied to Composition at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, and subsequently at the Master's Degree in Composition with Technologies at the ESMUC.

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Profiles of the protagonists:

Martí Sánchez
Oriol Saladrigues
Teatronika

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