In an ambitious and ingenious blend of mechanical construction and the art of dance, [Syuko Kato] and [Vincent Huyghe] from The Bartlett School of Architecture’s Interactive Architecture Lab have designed a robotic system that creates structures from a dancer’s movements that they have christened Fabricating Performance.

A camera records the dancer’s movements, which are then analyzed and used to direct an industrial robot arm and an industrial CNC pipe bending machine to construct spatial artifacts. This creates a feedback loop — dance movements create architecture that becomes part of the performance which in turn interacts with the dancer. [Huyghe] suggests an ideal wherein an array of metal manipulating robots would be able to keep up with the movements of the performer and create a unique, fluid, and dynamic experience. This opens up some seriously cool concepts for performance art.

Fabricating Performance is just the beginning. [Kato] and [Huyghe] envision a spatially interactive design system that would create anything from playgrounds to bus stops by translating design intent from dance — or motion in general — in an environment into structures appropriate for the space.

While using a robotic arm as a third hand in your work space might be a more practical application, this beautiful performance shows how that should never stop you from pushing the boundaries of creativity!

[via We Make Money Not Art]