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This
highly mediated installation is paradoxically immediately engaging to
the public. Direct access is offered by the inevitable recognition of
the Bot-arena as a football pitch in minature, complete with stadium
lights, and inhabitted by two teams of small robots - botplayers.
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<mouse over pix for sound> <click on photos for expanded image> |
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GROUND RULES>
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The rules of the game lie in the scripting, programming, movement of autonomous bodies, and the digital events they trigger. There is no referee. We have no intentions of trying to recreate a regular football game with robots. We are interested in the symbiotic play of autonomous bodies of mechanical, electronic and fleshy nature with the underlying interface. The creation of an autonomous environment is of essence. The environment gives birth to the game. Competetive elements arise through associative response of the human public and their direct intervention with the environment. |  |
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EASY TO LOVE>
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The
small robots are easy to love, and, though made of hard plastic and
metal, bare no resemblance to the hard muscular bodies of human football
players. Their protruding microphone noses recognise sound, and on a
sharp sound they change direction, before moving on. Their movement
generates more sound, which in turn is the source for more movement.
From time to time, both teams can be seen scratching on their own sound.
Collisions with hard surfaces also cause the players to change direction,
and the colliding bots may be seen clinched together, until a strong
enough sound releases them from their embrace. |
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| COMPETITION
AND HOOLIGEEKS> |
Any ballplay that occurs between the bots may seem coincidential, but by also giving the audience intervention possibilities, it is possible to clap or wave the players into competitive activities. We choose to call the audience "Hooligeeks". The more noise the public makes, the more the game is influenced or disrupted. A particularly raucous audience can disrupt the rhythm of the game completely at any given time, but in order to control a botplayers' movements, the public must enter into the fluctuating rhythm that the environment creates. They must enter into a symbiotic relationship with the environment. |
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MEDIA
GOAL> |
Football
is a highly mediated sport, and enjoys extreme TV coverage. This particular
aspect of mediation is reflected in Botball by implementing two TV screens
as the goalzones. An image-manipulating program called Image/ine developed
by the Steim Institute is used to control the image material shown on
the TV screens. A Connectix quickcam captures live video feed of the Botpitch
in black and white and superimposes, at fluctuating levels of transparency,
the botball game onto colour quicktime video clips of notorious football
games. When the ball is eventually nudged into the goal zone, a sound
sample of cheering is triggered. This in turn, is reflected on the appropriate
tv screen, where pictures of famous goals are shown.
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RESERVES> |
The
Botplayers are driven by battery. As the batteries wear flat, the Bots
get sluggish and are pulled off the pitch for rejuvenation by an attendee.
Reserves are sent out, fully charged and ready for action. |
<THIS SITE CONTAINS DOCUMENTARY MATERIAL FROM HYPER PEPPY FOOTBALL MATCH, WORKSHOP/TRONDHEIM, THE KICK OFF POINT FOR BOTBALL > |
