Expressiveness and Physicality in Interaction

This article introduces the approach, the developed models, and ongoing research issues on expressiveness and physical interaction in interactive systems, with a special focus on human-robot communication. Research issues and related concrete examples from the interactive multimedia performance “L‘Ala dei Sensi” (literally, “The Wing of the Senses”), held in Ferrara (Italy) in November 1999, are presented. “L‘Ala dei Sensi” is formed by different episodes, a subset of which include one or more dancers interacting in real-time with a robot on stage. This interaction can influence and generate computer-generated music and video. Experiments have been conduced on the concept of musical and visual “clones” on large screens interacting with humans and the robot. The underlying models and approaches are introduced, with a special focus on expressiveness in the physical interaction of dancers with mobile robots and with visual/music “clones”. An overview of the hardware and software architecture is shortly presented. A discussion on the results, learned lessons from this experience, and future work concludes the paper.