The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium UC Berkeley's Center for New Media

Fear and Fun: Performing the Human-Machine Interface;  Kal Spelletich

The dominant medium in the 21st century is technology. Technology is the overriding medium ruling, healing, pacifying and terrorizing us. It is saving lives, eases workloads, numbs us with inane entertainment, slaughters with deft precision and ruthlessness. Fear is also a source of terrorization. Terrorized by a fear of everything. This year it is financial collapse. The last few years it was terrorists. Previously Communists, Black people, Native Americans, next, maybe Martians. So, I also work with fear as a medium.

I build machines, robots and installations for my audience to operate. This interactive work is inspired by political activism, volunteerism and getting people involved in life. The collaboration with the audience completes the work. My collaborators are the audience. The work does not exist without them.

I experiment with creating a feedback loop between participant and machine. This work questions the role technology plays in our lives. How far people are prepared to submit to external forces and how far they are willing to interact and play with technology. My work attempts to challenge and subvert the applications of technology, the boundaries between art, the audience, fear and play.

Some inspirations are, political activism, hybrid human machine systems, blurring the boundaries between man and machine and prosthetically augmenting the body.