Prototype Automata

Automata Project

For our Automata project, Karen and I are doing a video of the three installations we built. We are really interested in presenting the unfair challenges that some women go through daily and the heroic strength needed to move on and stand on their feet. Therefore, we thought that the story of Zues and Io (Greek Mythology) is a great example for our big idea, where Io were used an d mistreated by the Gods of ancient Greece and had to live with forever since she was turned to an immortal. We are also influenced by the stye of Caroline’s movie, so we wanted our piece to look cute yet creepy.

We choose three beats from the story to present our idea.

Beat 1: where Zues turn Io int a cow when his wife suspected his affair. Then, Io was taken by the wife and tied to a giant tree with many-eyed Argus Panoptes guarding her.

Beat 2: where Hermes is sent by Zues to save Io from the Argus.

Beat 3: where Io met a man named Prometheus - he was chained by Zues because he taught men how to make fire, where a giant eagle would eat his liver every day - where he told her that one day she will be restored to human form and be the mother of one of the greatest heroes of all time.
To convey the cute and creepy style that we wanted, we created separate built scene for each beat with mis-proportioned characters and big shadows.

Furthermore, we chose a Surrealism like style, because it fits with our idea and our story where the concept is real and strong but the narrative we are using is fiction. We are also using a video as our medium to make sure that the audience see the story in sequence and not miss the details. I think that we are touching an important issue and try to make people relate to it or feel emotions through our narrative and robotics movements is an interesting medium and approach.

Beat 1:

Beat 2:

Beat 3: