The Robot Project

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THE ROBOT PROJECT

The Robot Project is a theatrical social experiment, currently under development and production by Stages of Science and Flyvende Grise. The play is about the creation of artificial intelligence and the relationship between AI and humans.
The two companies are known for making alternative and technology heavy theatre plays. Plays which are themed and designed to poke at the audience and make them question the ways they look at certain things.

As my end of first year exam, I was tasked with creating an identity and visual universe for The Robot Project. This consisted of creating a logotype, strapline, magic folder, poster and a motion spot.

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The keyword for my idea and concept is “ALIEN”.
I was very fascinated by the thought, that Artificial Intelligence in its purest form is alien to us humans. With the help of machine and deep learning, we are creating intelligence which foundation we do not understand.

The AI tries to approximate an experience of what it is like to be human, but eventually finds out that the human is not what it thought it was - and that its own self-awareness is so much more (and different) than the human ever will be able to experience, let alone understand.

- A snippet from The Robot Project manuscript

The best we can hope to create is an ersatz human intelligence. It may be faster at certain things that computers are inherently faster at, but that intelligence will be a simulacra, meant to fool us into thinking we are interacting with our fellow life forms, when in fact the intelligence behind the mask will be as alien as any bugged eye monster from science fiction.The best we can hope to create is an ersatz human intelligence. It may be faster at certain things that computers are inherently faster at, but that intelligence will be a simulacra, meant to fool us into thinking we are interacting with our fellow life forms, when in fact the intelligence behind the mask will be as alien as any bugged eye monster from science fiction.

- Jason Cranford Teague, “Should the “A” in AI stand for “Artificial” or “Alien” Medium article about AI