As social beings, we are expected to act towards various social standards and norms each day, and when we try to conform to these expectations, we are constantly stressed and sometimes even trying to fight back for our own voice and identity. During this process, we experience the constant burn out from peer pressure and self-expectations, which eventually will lead to negative outcomes and even death. In this final performance, we would like to explore this conformity process again through actions and robots, which will question us whether it is important to always keep up with social norms and high expectations that is imposed on us. In a community where people experience burn-outs from constant stress and peer pressure, maybe it is time to change the culture to be more forgiving and understanding of each other. 

The set up of the performance consists of four projection surfaces and four lights that symbols the idea of society, as well as four robots, with the same form but varying in decorations and colors, that represents human beings. Each robot is isolated within their own quadrant and the shadows projected on the screen is the only connection they have with each other. Seeing the shadows, one would follow and react towards the other, which will then create a synced chain reaction where all four performs the same motion. As we would like the audience to focus on the actions and emotions of the performance, we would like to keep the robot component simple by using the existing two link arms and stepper motors set-up.

We would like to start the performance with a simple and friendly action such as the hand wave to provide a fun and relaxing set up. However, when the intensity of the light source increases, and the robots see the shadows of others clearer, each of them would start acting more and more aggressively with the same action, waving faster and more rigid, until they break themselves. Since each of the robot will also have different tolerance level of “stress”, they will gradually reach the final action one by one.