Mawhrin-Skel (2006) performance event and exhibition opening, January 16th at 8pm PST.

Robots by Deanne Achong, Kate Armstrong, Joelle Ciona, David Floren, and Matt Smith, with help from Dina González Mascaró.

"Mawhrin-Skel" is a fictional character - an intelligent drone that, having failed to meet the conditions of its original purpose, is decommissioned and left to wander aimlessly through a near utopian environment where it becomes a social nuisance and prankster. This character - invented by Ian M Banks in his 1989 novel "The Player of Games" - provides an interesting social and cultural entry point into the study of robots as both cultural artifacts and autonomous members of society. This project examines ideas of function, autonomy, artificial intelligence and purpose-driven technology.

This work was originally developed during a residency and workshop in wireless robotics. The artists have created an eclectic collection of robots that react to their environment and communicate with each other. The works are shown both in performance and as installations. They include: a spinning top that winds up threads, a glass globe that uses hardware voice recognition to react to conversations in the space, a crow that sees the world through multi-faceted eyes, an instrument for measuring cell-phone and WiFi traffic, a long nosed creature that drives around and emits high pitched tones, and a set of chart recorders that output levels of data-streaming activity from the robots.