Roz: An Interactive Sonic Being

This performance is part of the current Sculpture Month Houston exhibition “The Sleep of Reason The Fragmented Figure”.
“Roz” debuted this past June at the CURRENTS 2023 Festival in Santa Fe to great acclaim. It is a new kind of audio-visual hybrid instrument that can produce unexpected, novel soundscapes.

The inclusion of an interactive robotic system in the “Fragmented Figure” project points to the vast promises of an exponential rise of human creativity via a mind/machine interface. There is rapidly accelerating research being conducted in linking the human brain and its neural activities with Artificial Intelligence. As recent roll-out events have demonstrated, AI can be unpredictable and even threatening despite tightly controlled parameters.

“Roz” may be part of the initial phase of an evolutionary development, whose endgame is unpredictable and unknowable. Aiming toward a degree of autonomy and latitude in searching for unexpected, creative solutions is one of the main attractions of systems like “Roz”. This demonstration may just be the beginning of the progressive growth and learning process of “Roz” from a more figurative art entity to an eventual self-actualization with the ability to make its own choices.

“Roz” or Robotic Resonance is an interactive and durational sonic art piece that features a piano harp (metal harp and strings of a piano), 2 robotic arms holding spinning felt, and an interactive computer control.

Strings are tuned to the resonant frequencies of the exhibition venue and when activated, create a remarkable soundscape of contrapuntal harmonic relationships.

Visually evoking part sci-fi operating table and part antique instrument, this juxtaposition combines two ages of technology, highlighting the passage of time while still integrating a hybrid audiovisual instrument with possibilities greater than the sum of its individual components.

The sounds are unexpected, ethereal, and glacial in pace, matching the unfamiliar but still resonant structure of the work. Gliding motor-spun felt along the bronze-wound strings bring out different overtones of the re-tuned piano harp, producing unexpected melodies and timbres reminiscent of Brian Eno, Ellen Fullman, and George Crumb.