September 2023

Title of our performance: Promax Nebulous 3000 Cyber

My Opinion towards our artifact:

From my perspective, our artifact is successful. The main artifact we want to highlight is the AI wings with other creations like the background and the lovely cardboard people. All together, they help us illustrate a complete story with the theme of the moral dilemma in the original Omelas story and also the moral and ethnic problem that AI may cause.

My definition of interaction is that“interaction is a process in which two individuals can actively respond to each other’s actions through conversation(involving listening, thinking, and speaking) and is facilitated through specific media.” I think our artifact basically matches my definition because in our performance, the AI wings not only can detect the environment in the basement but also strike a conversation with its user. AI has moral programming as well, which indicates that it has the ability to process data and respond to the external world. What’s more, at the end of the story, the wings take away citizens which is also a kind of response and action.

I think that we can show more details of the interaction in our performance. For example, to make some sensors for the wings to better explain how it detects the environment. I also think that we can do better in human-wing interaction. Since interaction should be a two-way communication, our project shows how wings interact with others but lacks how humans interact with wings. In our story, all humans can do is to operate them with strings and use them as a kind of transportation. Hence, I may add more human interaction into the project.

A Critical Analysis and Assessment of a Performance From Another Group

I would like to share my opinion on Drooz Visualizer performed by group C, which is the one I like most. This performance is basically about a therapeutic machine that can detect people’s emotions by scanning them and then provide solutions. I particularly like it because their team creates two different scenes to show different working status of the machine and people’s different attitudes towards it, which helps the audience understand the artifact in a more critical perspective. In their performance, the machine would generate music to comfort people. However, I think it would be better to add more sensory experience into the therapy, including vision, touching and so on. Overall, I really like this project.

Script

Scene: 1

In Omelas

Narrator 1:

“This is Jenny, she’s a happy citizen in a happy place, Omelas.”

Jenny waves.

“Here in Omelas, everyone is happy.”

Jenny walking around.

Jenny:

“Hey, Eric, Andy and Gottfried! What’s up guys?”

Citizen 1:

“Good morning, Jenny! Another beautiful day in Omelas, isn’t it?”

Jenny:

“It sure is! The sun is shining, and everyone seems so content.”

Citizen 2:

“Have you tried the new ProMax Nebulous 3000 Cyber? It’s amazing!”

Jenny:

“I have! It’s like having a personal assistant and more.”

Narrator 1:

“Recently, the citizens of Omelas have gotten their hands on a new piece of technology. Take a look at the ProMax Nebulous 3000 Cyber, our incredible wing.”

The wing moves up and down.

“In Omelas, people don’t need Didis because of this. It has transformed the lives of its citizens, offering multifunctional wings that serve as their all-encompassing aides, seamlessly integrating into every facet of their existence.”

Pause.

“Jenny’s mother comes to see her.”

Mother:

“Jenny! You’re finally eighteen. I know how much you wanted to see the child and now you finally can!”

Jenny:

“My mom says that our happiness depends on the suffering of a child…”

Prepares to go through the door

Scene: 2

In the Basement

Jenny Goes through the door, into the basement

Narrator 2:

“As Jenny steps into the basement, a stinky smell welcomes her. The dimly lit room is small, uncomfortable, and most certainly not suitable for life.”

Jenny:

“Ew. What is this smell? Why is this place so dark? How can it be so small?”

AI Wing:

“Unhealthy air condition, unhealthy air condition, this place is not sanitary, leave immediately”

Scene 3:

Meeting the child

Jenny:

“But I want to explore more…”

Walks around and bumps into the child.

AI Wing:

“Child detected, Child detected.”

Jenny:

“That’s the child?”

AI Wing:

“Obviously”

Jenny:

Jenny walks up to the child, the child won’t speak

“Why is this child so sad? She looks very miserable…”

Child (whispering):

“Help me…”

Jenny:

“Oh I see it now… the price of our happiness.”

AI Wing:

“Indeed, Jenny. The cost of our utopia is a heavy one.”

Narrator 2:

“The wings, sensing Jenny’s torn feelings of empathy and the desire to stay in Omelas, begin to activate regardless.”

The wings, sensing Jenny’s feelings of empathy, begin to activate.

Jenny:

“But I don’t want to leave…”

AI Wing:

“But is that fair for the child? According to my moral programming, it is unethical to let the child suffer, even though everyone in Omelas is happy, but based on my calculations and data bases, the best thing to do is to make everyone leave.”

AI Wing starts to lift Jenni and flies away, the people flying away.

Jenny:

“But is it fair for the wings to sacrifice the happiness of everyone else?!”

Screams and flies away

Citizens:

The citizens also start flying away

“Where are we going?? What is happening?? The wings are doing their own thing!”

Narrator 1:

The child gets up and walks out to see the world.

“The child finally leaves the basement and she finally can explore the world of happiness. The end.”

THE END

My Personal Contribution

Idea: We adopted my idea in the performance and made some changes on it. We made book pages with cardboard and used them as our scene in the performance to show the contrast of Omelas and the basement to deepen our topic.

[my draft]

Actual work:

Make the prototype of the wings with cardboard
Decorate the wings with the fabric
Glue canvas and black cloth onto the cardboard to make the background
Design and paint the background
Help with some trivial tiny things(since I show up everyday and participate in everyday’s work)

Team Dynamics/Different Roles/Task allocations/communications

Timeline of our team work:

9.14 First group meeting: Introduce our ideas

9.17 Second group meeting: Determine the form of our artifact, the story it based on and the theme we want to convey through the project & Write down some basic ideas

9.19 Basic prototyping of the wings

9.20 Decorate the wings & Make the initial shape of our background(the book pages)

9.21 Glue some fabric onto the background

9.22 Paint the background and add decorations & Add strings to the wings for the user to operate & make cardboard people and glue photos on it

9.23 Discuss and write the official script & Start to rehearse

9.24 Last rehearsal & Performance

Different roles and task allocation:

We first wanted to categorize us into groups to work for wings, background and cardboard people. But at last we didn’t work in groups to carry out our project and there were lots of crossover. Hence, it’s hard to clarify our exact allocation.

Basically, Ninj is our group leader who initiates our meetings, participates in the whole process(it’s hard to list them all) and never misses a day of work.

Sara(she shares the same English name with me) is very proactive and she comes up with a lot of ideas, such as the wings. She also participates in the prototyping process, designs and makes cardboard people and helps with adding strings.

Zhenzhen decorates the wings and paints the background together with me.

Leo makes the initial shape of the background, helps with cardboard people making and prints some useful pictures for decoration. He also has a bunch of ideas.

Jessica helps with gluing the fabric onto the cardboard as well as editing and revising the script.

Communications in our team:

I like the atmosphere during our discussion and communication quite a lot because our team members are all creative and proactive to share their ideas. Everyone is so supportive of one another. Though sometimes we may “argue” with each other in a nice way when we hold different opinions, I find the “debate” quite fun and it really broadens our thinking and improves our project. Overall, we have great communication with each other and I feel so glad to work with our team!

Here are some pictures:)

The creation of the wings