For the final performance, I would like to explore the idea of conforming towards social expectations with a series of robots reacting to shadows of another robot. As social beings, we interact with standards and behaviors of others and try to act accordingly to social norms and expectations imposed on us. Internalizing these social standards, we then impose them on others and creates a chain effect, where in the end everyone acts the same to keep up with the social expectations.

The performance is designed with 4 robots, 4 lights, and 4 projection planes as sketched below, with ABCD representing the 4 robots and yellow arrows representing the direction of lights. The current chain effect shown below is B reacting towards A, C reacting towards B, D reacting towards C and A reacting towards D.

It will start with them each doing their own action and after noticing the shadows of others on the screen, they eventually conform and move in sync. However, at times, someone will do something random and different that breaks the norm and causes chaos. However, will they conform again and resync or will they take the opportunity and break out of the norms to be “themselves”?