CONGRATS GUYS!

 

Thank you all for your hard work. I think we put together a great show. There was such a great response from the audience.

We did it…

After a lot of hard work, determination and even a few tears we finally made it to performance day! All of our hard work has finally paid off … we hope … Our costumes seemed to work well with the style of our performance. We had grey long sleeve turtle necks with black/dark coloured pants, a bit of fragmentary costume and a bit of brechtian blacks coming through. Our hair was sectioned into three braids on the tops of our heads then went out into our natural hair past the back of the ear. This symbolised the uniformity of the robots, the braids also looked a bit like cables, then the natural part of our hair represented the human side of us.

Overall I think both performances were successful. In the first performance the audience was a lot more excited and interactive. The atmosphere was very different compared to the second performance. In the second performance our multimedia stopped working for a couple of seconds but Caitlyn came to the rescue and got it working again!

So proud of everyone!!!

More Spam yes i am

Now that i have a spare moment i am making up for blog posts i haven’t done yet. Apologys for the spam.  So a wile back quinn got some 3/4s to write hikues  And tamara asked her little brother to write one for us aswell here is the results.

 

I wanted to keep the hiku as similar to the kids original as possible. For the magority of the poems i did. However for jacks i edited out 2 lines for timeing reasons. He did TOO GOOD a job writing a poem for us!

Makeup

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AQUARIUS!!!!!

Hair- this is a post about hair. Wow that was poor. ANYWAY

over the weekend i covered my head in sticky, slimy styling gel for the good of the team. I tried alot of different styles but was stumped as this style would some how have to work for My short thin, straight hair. Georgia’s long thick wavy hair. Tams thick light hair and quins ENORMOUS MAIN!.

by the end of my trials my head was as tough as cement. Because we all have different hair consistencies i thought why no tdo something with the parts?!?!?

The parts were relatively easy. At first it just looked like tetris blocks. i was aiming for a (computer ish/linier/pizely/sleek) part that mimics the natural human part. Because i can symbolise anything and make up hidden meanings this trial was to symbolise that the infinet unique intricacies we humans are freckled with have not and will not be achieved by artificial mockeries of us. Humanoids can never thick QUITE like we think.

Costume of cruelty

According to the Drama Teacher, in theatre of cruelty “mask was also used on occasions” – which we have used in our war scene with georgia and quinn.

We have all successfully put our contacts in. (Not without difficulties) Good news they DEFINITELY assault the senses. I showed both my parents and they refused to look at me. Mum said “you look like a devil child!” Dad was freaked out. So i classify that is a TICK for assaulting the senses.

This MAY be stretching it but TECHNICALLY it is half a costume! THUS fragmentary thus epic theater!

 

 

 

Some new scenes

We wanted to cut down some of the dialogue in the court scene as it dragged on, but also make that scene more interesting. We also needed to add more aspects of sound into the performance. So here are the changes that have been made to the ensemble.

• To add some contrast to make the court scene more interesting, Georgia’s character is incompetent and similar the lawyer in the castle. This varies my character from Georgia’s and varies the performance.
• To cut down, we had to add more somewhere else and we also had to add more sound into our performance;

– Siri scene: I looped recordings of Siri which will play after the scene where the loud tone plays. The four of us will act paranoid about this voice, and be convinced that as an AI machine, she will take over and all humans are there for endanger. Tin foil will line the walls and be ripped down by us during our frantic call for everyone to protect themselves. The sound made by the ruffling foil as we hand it out to audience members to make tine hats will build the tension further and also assault the senses as the audience touches the material.

– The bionic arm: We wanted to add to the timeline and explore another early development of AI and decided on the bionic arm. Static plays in the background as Georgia and Tamara manipulate their voice and the batons to create a soundscape to represent the mechanical arm as an early, clunky development. Chelsea and I perform a stylised movement piece to the rhythm of the sounds to represent the arm (visual poetry).

IS THE BIONIC BRA AI?

So this scene has undergone some interesting development. First the infomercial was selling a normal bra that didn’t actually have any tech in it…. But that problem was solved when we discovered the Bionic Bra.

After Cash watched our performance he noted in his feedback; “No evidence (or mention in scene) of any form of AI being in the Bionic Bra… Scene does not count.”

This left us with two problems to solve:

1. Prove the Bionic Bra is AI
2. Include this in the performance

Number 1: This is an exert from the Catalyst episode transcript: “NARRATION
To increase breast support during periods of physical activity, the bra incorporates newly developed artificial muscle technology.

Professor Julie Steele
This is the artificial muscles that Professor Wallace’s team has developed. So what these do is that when the sensor sends a signal, these then actually contract to pull the bra in and to increase the compression on the breasts.”

The key technology in this product is artificial muscle technology. We got really excited when we heard this in the episode but decided to double check to see if ‘Artificial Muscle Tech’ was actually AI. After some google searching we found that just like other AI machines such as Big Dog, the tech responds to stimuli, just as human intelligence would. Furthermore, we found that this tech is used in; “aerospace, automotive industry, medicine, robotics, articulation mechanisms, entertainment, animation, toys, clothing, haptic and tactile interfaces, noise control, transducers, power generators, and smart structures.” Note that haptic and smart structures fall under the category of AI. If this wasn’t enough to confirm that this tech is in fact classified as AI, we also found that a number of universities were researching Artificial Muscle technology in their “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LABORATORIES” (see image below).

Number 2: Do we need to include so explicitly that the Bionic Bra is AI? We have extended the video at the beginning of the scene so it outlines that it is based on Artificial Muscle technology. We don’t explicitly state that Siri, the Google Car or weaponry systems use AI tech, so why should we with this product?

Tomorrow is the big day…

Today we had a very productive and successful rehearsal at Georgia’s lovely abode. As a team we were able to refine many of the sloppy scenes which Cash said we needed to improve. As mentioned in Caitlyn’s post we were able to fix up our bionic bra scene – making it absolutely clear that the bra is a form of artificial intelligence, even though it doesn’t look like it, we need to be open to ideas. We also cemented in our lines for the Turing test scene, making the scene look and feel cleaner and crisper. Yesterday I painted on the batons the word ‘HUMANITY’ which symbolises the loss of humanity if we put all of our trust and freedom into the hands of an artificial intelligence machine.

I have worked on my use of voice for all of my characters, distinctly making each character’s voice different. For the character of journalist, I play a woman, I just have a naturally deep voice… For the character of Hephaestus I deepen my voice and make it boom across the performance space, creating a god-like voice. For the character of Jayden Smith I raise the pitch of my voice, making it sound more feminine, and add a philosophical tone to it. For the character of Infomercial Advertiser I raise the pitch in my voice and add a posh accent to make myself sound like a female tv presenter. For the character of RACV man I only deepen my voice slightly, to give a more friendly character. For the character of Peppa I raise the pitch of my voice quite a lot, creating the stereotypical female robot. For the character of Judge I deepen my voice and put on a posh/older male accent to make myself sound like a judge who has worked as a judge for many, many years.

Cash’s Feedback + our solution

• Convention intro – Georgia to project her voice & minimise walking in front of the projector
• Consider the fact that the seats will be filled – where will Chels, Tam and Caitlyn be sitting? = THE CHAIRS ARE IN THE WALK WAY. THEY ARE NOT PART OF THE AUDIENCE SEATING AND WILL HAVE A RESERVE SIGN ON THEM.
• Is didactically a word? = DIDACTICALLY IS A WORD. IT ALSO AUTO-CORRECTS TO THIS WORD ON AN IPHONE.
• Batons – sharper movement
• Ancient Greece scene very good
• Turing Test scene – Caitlyn not scene when on floor. = CAITLYN TO MOVE TO STAGE AFTER THE SCENE COMENCES.
• Turing Test scene – Tam and Chels louder
• Caitlyn learn intro line to Turing Test
• Fix tempo of Turing Test scene = LEARN LINES
• Monday; tape down extension cords
• Costumes?
• Bionic Bra – Chels learn lines
• Bionic Bra – no evidence of any form of AI in the bra – scene doesn’t count. = REFER TO ‘IS THE BIONIC BRA AI?’ POST
• Tam delete ‘shit’= REPLACE WITH ‘SHITAKE MUSHROOMS’
• Law scene – Caitlyn and Georgia learn lines
• Tam vary voice for characters
• Law scene – Chels and Georgia to project their voices
• Scary music too loud – cannot hear Caitlyn and Georgia = DIALOGUE STARTS EARLIER WHEN MUSIC IS SOFTER
• Not enough sound = SIRI SCENE HAS BEEN CREATED WHERE TIN FOIL IS RUFFLED IN THE FACE OF THE AUDIENCE WHICH BUILDS THE TENSION. THE BIONIC ARM MOVEMENT PIECE, TAM AND GEORGIA CREATE MACHINE SOUNDS USING THEIR VOICE AND THE BATONS
• More props? = THE BATONS ARE UTILISED MORE. MASKS AND TIN FOIL HAVE BEEN ADDED.