BabyBott

Stefan Prosky w/ help from Tati Kaupp

Animators have long been interested in animating the inanimate. What bored school-kid hasn't been caught playing spaceship with a pencil? The luxo desk lamp by Pixar is a beautiful animated exposition of this kind of daydream. BabyBott is my attempt at an appealing robotic icon. I chose a robotic form because I thought it would be more engaging, magical and lifelike than video. I've been looking for a more culturally charged inanimate object to animate. A baby bottle is the first tool that most of us learn to use. It is also already form of robot really......if you think about it. (It's a robot breast.) No, I won't make a bott that just squirts folks with milk. I think it's much more interesting to personify a baby bottle as a baby with simple, unsure movement, and interactive infant audio. BabyBott is also intended to mess with what folks expect when they hear the word robot. I'd like to expand the armored metal pizza box & plastic pet motifs. I hope that the cognitive dissonance created by Babybott will remind the viewer of their childhood and make them contemplate parenthood in a whimsical way. What IS BabyBott's Talent? It will get you to take care of it.

In addition to studying animation & cell biology, Stefan J. Prosky makes art toys and installations that seem to have the character of life. The Squax is a handheld musical instrument/puppet that changes its pitch/sound quality when it is moved around a light source. Mammalball is a fur covered radio-controlled robot that purrs and squeaks based on how it is driven. He has created a group of 10 small solar powered robots that will draw abstract chance based pictures. This drawing BEAM ecology/performance is called SYMET Studio. Prosky also has a strong interest in digital video. The interactive video short Duped investigates the notion of the control of time using a combination of biological & digital tools. His masters thesis Food Secret Extraction Interface is an interactive audio/visual installation, which humorously investigates the trustworthiness of food. BabyBott is an interactive art robot that explores the end user's views of parenthood and responsibility. All these pieces attempt to create the illusion of life to please the viewer and pollinate their cultural meme type.