Android existence: The affect of artificial vitality

Abstract

This article investigates the affective vitality of the technical in Japanese android-making through the creation of the android Alter and its artistic performance in the “android opera” Scary Beauty. By following the technical processes invested in Alter, I highlight how Alter’s technical components are brought into affective synergy with artistic and cultural traditions whereby these traditions are reinvigorated with technical vitality. This research shifts the focus from a human-centered to a technically centered perspective on Japanese robotics. By this move, the article shows how the technical nature rather than the humanlike nature of such beings influences the collaborative environments from which they grow. In doing so, I address the affective and ambiguous vitality that brings such artificially made beings to life, and highlight the creational affinity to artistic processes of creation and their shared techniques of the artificially real.