Babyface

Babyface is a dance performance, a study in robotics engineering, and an interactive installation for audience-participants. The work invites audience members to activate a pair of large scale robotic wings with their breath and motion. The wings augment each audience members’ body, simultaneously serving as a magical, otherworldly spectacle and a physical metaphor for the outsize expectations placed on feminine bodies via technological design and social pressure.

The wings simultaneously create an effect of grandeur and awe, and a rigid, limiting characterization that becomes burdensome over the course of the performance. The performer is a revered spectacle because of this affect, but also cannot be different than her container; this tension between aspiration and limitation fuels this work.

Ladenheim and Lab members responded to an unfortunate circularity with deep historical roots. Technologies (from corsets to social media) pressure women to look and perform beautifully, effortlessly and non-threateningly, feeding a culture that expects less of women who conform while simultaneously punishing those who do not. This translates into newly created technologies (i.e. Instagram algorithms that prioritize and highlight promoters that perpetuate these stereotypes, the voice of Siri or Alexa, and Sophia the Robot) that inherit those same patriarchal prejudices. This collaboration uses technology creation and embodied practice in tandem to exploit these prejudices and reveal the emotional impact of this harmful circularity.