This week, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra announced its most unusual guest conductor yet for a performance of, aptly, 'Impossible Dream'. Whilst ASIMO (which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) the robot is able to run, walk on uneven slopes, and even respond to simple voice commands, the Detroit musicians themselves were all a bit much for her, as she only mimicked the actions of a conductor taped beforehand.
All this leads us asking WHY, in our generation's love of impersonal technology, we would choose to train a robot to perform tasks previously thought to require very human emotion and skill. Perhaps this question might be answered by this somewhat damning review of a certain orchestra (not the Aurora, of course!) which indicates that roboticism is nothing new in the field of conducting...
The BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin gave a vigorous, perhaps slightly mechanical performance of ... Alexander Goehrs' second musical offering
GFH 2001
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1 comment:
smarrrrt
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