Performing Drones. New Perspectives in Human-Machine-Theatre

In Performing Drones researchers and artists approach the relationship between people and drones across disciplines. The research is carried out at the intersection between art, technology and society, which is also reflected in the project team: the author, director and philosopher Bernd Liepold- Mosser, the professor with a focus on control engineering and robotics Stephan Weiss (Institute of Smart Systems Technologies) and the media sociologist Matthias Wieser (Department of Media and Communications) work together to understand and use the interaction between people and drones. The theater serves as a laboratory, with the drone hall laboratory becoming a theater stage, says project manager Liepold-Mosser. The research project combines new possibilities of drone technology with three specific theater projects in which aspects of coexistence and interaction between people and machines are explored using drones as an example. This specific projects serve as a conceptual framework. The performative settings are: Drone and Seek, Crowd and Swarm and Drone(o) and Juliet. Drones and their applications will soon play an even more important role in our lives. Our aim is to use the means of art-based research to reflect on the associated questions and challenges for human coexistence. This also means placing greater emphasis on people and social connections in the future development of autonomous systems, says the project team. Based on the theory building on the interaction between people and technology, the theater serves as an experimental research laboratory in which the question of the respective conditions and influences of human and technical actors is investigated in a research- performative manner.