The marionette Pinocchio dreams of being a real boy and dances, all by himself, without strings, through the world adventurously. At the Ars Electronica Center, too, puppets dance without human intervention – but instead with the help of robot arms. These complex robots digitally copy a human puppet show, and thus the human craft of the puppeteer becomes a choreographed machine dance. How is it possible for humans to collaborate with machines and robots like this? Can a beautiful art such as the dance of a puppet be (re)created? And what role does programming play in this collaboration between man and machine?
