On Kelly Dobson's Talk

I've missed a couple reading responses, so I thought I'd offer my two cents on Kelly Dobson's talk in the stead of one of them.

I found Dobson's presentation to be marvelous for a couple of reasons. First, and I feel like most importantly, I really felt like I could get behind the way she was approaching the entire topic. The anecdote about visiting the Big Dig in the height of its many year odyssey, when it was slouching its way through the muddy subterranean depths of under-Boston, its massive excavation equipment working nonstop, was indicative of this quality. The idea of singing along with the noisy machines and in the midst of singing with them feeling a palpable connection - there's something delightfully childish about this. When I call her childish, I use the term to express my admiration for the childlike sincerity with which she approached the questions and challenges presented by the field she's working in, in the freely interdisciplinary nature of her work.

But the actual creative work itself, which is indeed the necessary product of her playfulness, I'd like to touch on too. As she began to talk more about her machines, I began to wonder if she considers herself to be producing machines that she expects people to see as 'living'. I wasn't sure if she conceives of the machine itself as more than its parts, as having a sort of humanity held within it, unto itself, or rather if she conceives of her machines as solely tools of therapy. Or perhaps the only way they're able to be cathartic tools of therapy is if they can be seen as anthropomorphic.

In some cases, her machines reminded me of a Japanese art called Chindogu, in which machines are often made to be worn on the body in comical and conspicuous ways. Her Scream Buddy (I forget the name) was one such invention - somewhat absurd and cumbersome, but nonetheless pointing out a possible (but ultimately "unuseless") interface with the human body. In the case of her communicating blenders (or, as Prof. Rosen would have it, mimetic blenders), there was less of this comical absurdity and more of what makes her work special, which is the idea that you could feel a human connection with a machine. I'll just throw out a reference to cyborgs here, seeing as this is the very trajectory we considered lass class. I've never really been convinced that I could feel a human closeness to anything non-human, which stands to reason. But the idea of holding an amorphous silicon blob which breathes with me - I might imagine feeling a fondness for such a thing. Perhaps cyborgs are next.