Intellectual Property Law

Valiant

By Susan Crawford

The Robotic Chair.

They turned all the lights off in the hall. (”It’ll be more poetic that way,” I heard one of the presenters say.)

The floodlights, when they were turned on, were trained on a simple blond chair, standing on a black stage. Suddenly, the chair energetically threw itself to the ground, in pieces. Legs, seat, back, all apart - one of the legs even fell off the stage entirely.

Then the seat rolled in a circle, by itself, 360 degrees of quiet grinding sound. It appeared to locate a leg. It oriented itself toward the leg, propelled itself towards it, and attached itself to the leg. Leg number two went through a similar attaching process. Leg three had to be nudged by the seat to get it in the right position, and leg number one abandoned so that leg three could be attached.

One of the presenters took pity on the chair at that point, and threw leg four back up on the stage. Almost showing off, the chair patiently rolled towards leg four and attached itself to it. Then the back - that wasn’t easy, but the back popped up onto the seat and there was a flat chair, all four legs splayed out on the stage.

This was the magic moment - when the four legs worked together to raise the chair up into - a chair again, a whole, standing in its simplicity on the stage. Just for a moment. Valiant, steadfast, purposeful. The crowd laughed and applauded.

And then the chair threw itself forward, breaking up again into pieces on the stage.

No one’s in charge of that chair - it keeps finding itself and pulling itself together. I watched the presenters, and their eyes were fixed affectionately on their creation. They were curious, each time, to see how the chair would solve the puzzle of putting itself together. I bet they’re quite emotionally attached to that chair.

At the end, after many questions, the chair lay in lifeless, separate pieces on the stage.

You had to be there.

Looking at it, you could believe that time’s arrow can be made to run backwards. Or you could believe that almost anything can be accomplished with the help of a few motors, a well-placed camera, and some carefully-engineered parts. Either way, it was a magical and optimistic presentation.

Full post as published by Susan Crawford Blog on January 23, 2008 (boomark / email).