A place no one lives
Music video clip/short film produced at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains in July 2025, composed and directed by Patricia Alessandrini. (Please see full credits in the application materials;)
This video was shown as part of the installation 'Vospora, a singing empathetic robot-pet' at the Fresnoy in September-January 2025-6. When visitors to the installation interact with Vospora through the biosensing interface, Vospora directs its gaze towards the visitor(s), breathes along with them, and vocalises in synchrony with the video. (Please see explainer video for details and demonstration.)
This video clip features soprano Marisol Montalvo and violinist Lorenzo Derinni (the latter of whom is not visible in the video), conducted by Hans Kretz and accompanied by Vospora, a soft-robotic creature inspired by biological structures and functions, capable of producing sounds in a manner modeled after the human voice, with sounds that are produced by imitation vocal cords and then modulated by two membranes situated in transparent tentacles.
Based on a libretto by novelist Alexandra Kleeman, this 'aria' takes place in a spaceship where the protagonist, O, has spent years alone in outer space, accompanied only by the creature. While O expresses her sense of regret, isolation and alienation, Vospora breathes and moves empathetically with her: in a moment of relative levity in the midst of this lament, O invites the creature to imitate her movements in a playful pantomime. This work thus explores the affective possibilities of human-computer interaction through the intimate relationship of O with a non-anthropomorphic, technological entity: a cyborg being who breathes and moves with her and attunes its vocalisations to hers.
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