@heyhexx

@heyhexx

@heyhexx

@heyhexx is an interactive social media responsive robot puppet theatre installation. This theatre, designed to be viewed through social media platforms, acts as an intermediary between the digital and physical worlds. Emotions expressed through social media interactions are translated into puppet theatre through the animated form of Hexx the Robot and HexxWorld.

People interact with Hexx the Robot by sending it a tweet, which is analysed for the emotion contained within it. Hexx and its stage perform in response to these identified emotions. By interacting with Hexx, people are able to experience the emotive embedding in their messages through generating a new form of social media theatre. The project combines elements of puppet theatre, robotics, paper craft, real-time interaction, and data analytics.

Amidst this current pandemic, when much of our lives has moved to the virtual world, @heyhexx serves as a friendly reminder of the effects that words and actions in the virtual world can have on the physical world beyond the screens in front of us.

Send Hexx a tweet at twitter handle @heyhexx, or through the link below!
https://twitter.com/heyhexx?lang=en

Custom built software streams incoming tweets to the Twitter handle @heyhexx, which are analysed for emotion expression through IBM Watson’s Natural Language Understanding API. The interaction software drives the electronics in response and recorded video is relayed back through the Twitter API to send a reply to the person who tweeted.

The physical set is composed of dynamic origami structures and characters, carefully lit with dramatic lighting and animated through mechanical motors and pulleys. The hardware system bridges the puppet theatre and software, and contains the physical movements that express the emotions in the mechanics. Hardware includes one UR10 robotic arm as puppet master of Hexx the robot, 50 servo motors, 5 Arduinos, and custom LED light props all using serial, I2C and OSC communication to synchronize movements in the physical theatre with the software.

The physical design of the project is a semi-circular theatre structure (2.5m(l) x 1.25m(w) x 2m(h)). Within the structure is Hexx’s world made from a mixture of origami and papercraft as well as custom mechanical designs for each character within the theatre. Parts for the set were fabricated through 3D printing, laser cutting, CAD and woodworking techniques.

https://vimeo.com/304354012

https://twitter.com/heyhexx, https://www.instagram.com/heyhexx/, https://heyhexx.art/certcard/

@heyhexx was created by Patsaraporn Liewatanakorn, Parvin Farahzadeh and Sana Yamaguchi, during their time in the masters program by the Interactive Architecture Lab, part of UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture. Hexx is the birth child of the three artists’ interests and backgrounds in architecture, exhibition design, theatre, and human computer interaction.

Patsaraporn Liewatanakorn : set design and mechatronics
Parvin Farahzadeh: creative technologist and animator
Sana Yamaguchi : interaction system and light design

London,UK - Toronto, CA - Tokyo, JP