My proposal is to modify the current trend of robot duets by doing a fully backlit performance, with 4 (or maybe more) pairs that perform in sequence. Each duet would have it’s own lamp behind it, and we would sequence the lamps so that the shadow of only one duet is visible at a time. With clever placement of the robots and lamps, we could force the shadows of each performance to sit in the same plane, which would maintain continuity between the performances.

By fading in and out the lights with DMX and synchronizing the beginnings and ends of consecutive performances, we can allow the performances to seamlessly blend through each other. This helps to get across the idea that we are watching the same pair of entities throughout the performance, just in different forms and at different life stages. Unique personalities for the left and right side could also help to further support this theme.

Adding shadow environments would be very interesting as well. We explored this with the thorny “grass” around the bird robots, and I think it helps to better set the robots in their environments. By setting the pairs in different, evolving environments we can show a progression in time well. For example, start in grass and trees, move into basic homes that are still set in nature, then tall cement buildings and oil dredges, then maybe a desert or ruins to show the rise/fall of humanity along with the aging/dying of our robots in those settings.

By looping the whole performance, we can have a ‘rebirth’ theme, where the final performance leads back into the first performance seamlessly.