This book considers David Hanson’s robots as a performative expression of our cultural moment serving as a paradigm for the evolution of humanoid social robots. Mechanical beings have occupied the human imagination since antiquity. Now they inhabit the pop-cultural imagination embodying the apotheosis of humanity’s technological aspirations and dread. Sophia Hanson’s most advanced robot anticipates the future as she articulates the mythic pattern narrative anxieties and hopes as old as humanity. Gendered as an attractive female with a face inspired by Queen Nefertiti and Audrey Hepburn Sophia is a cipher avatar and turning point that brings humanity and technology a step closer to the emergence of a post-human species. The author is a transdisciplinary artist/scholar/educator working internationally in experimental performance indigenous performance (ritual shamanism) and social robotics. Hanson’s robots and Sophia are examined as performance media and events as characters evolving as post-human narratives of technological beings. The emergent complex and collaborative relationships social robots have with technology AI performance anthropology mythology psychology sociology popular culture social media politics and economics are considered. |Sophia Robot Post Human Being | Theatre and Performance
