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BB the Pet Robot


Lecture Performance
2023 -> Experimental Digital Arts - UCLA , Los Angeles, CA, 2023

-> Honor Fraser Gallery, 2023 “BB the Pet Robot” is a lecture performance that explores the edges, limits, ethics and transformative potentialities of affective technologies. By deconstructing the stereotypical man/machine dichotomy and the social norms we project upon our tools, can we create a space that allows for intimacy, vulnerability and care? Is it acceptable to develop feelings for BB the Pet Robot?

Anna-Maria Velentza, a Ph.D Candidate in Human-Robot Interaction and a Fulbright Scholar at the Interaction Lab at USC, contributes her own research and expertise to this endeavor. Drawing inspiration from social robots and robot pets, cyber feminism, and the glitch manifesto by Russel Legacy, the performance examines the intricate interplay between humans and these cyborg companionships, gender roles and labor, the political architecture of the body, the failure of the machine as a radical space for transformation, the embodiment of the error.

By incorporating elements of an academic research lecture, such as a PowerPoint presentation, a live survey for the audience, graphs and pie charts, together with a drag – strip show and furry extravaganza, the performance questions whether our technologies can otherwise be imagined while shifting the power dynamic into unexpected spaces.

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