Robots and other machines are living manifestations of ideas and relationships, and are most often defined by their function. An alarm clock doesn’t exist without the need for humans to wake up on time. Usefulness, work, time, and sleep are related through the alarm clock. But these relationships change over time. Machines can lose their usefulness and their job, just like humans do. How can they find a new life, new work, and an identity outside of their function?
This is the story of Manif, a robot and (former) alarm clock, and their journey.
Beginnings
One night in 2007, Zeph Thibodeau [student member, Concordia] made an impulsive online purchase that he promptly forgot about. A week later, he was surprised to receive a package. It was a Clocky, a novelty alarm clock developed at MIT. Clocky robots are designed to wake humans in the most annoying and startling way possible, by screaming at the top of their lungs while driving around and under the furniture. At first this was novel and amusing, but the relationship quickly went sour. Zeph started to hate this little machine which, through no fault of its own, was made to be hated. Within a few weeks, Zeph was fed up and stuffed the robot into a box where it gathered dust for 17 years.
Fast forward to February 2024, and Zeph was now a doctoral student. He was invited by Quai Des Savoirs (Toulouse) to propose a residency project based on his recent work in Machine Menagerie, Chronogenica, and Ritualizing Care in Human-Robot Relations. Peering out from a box of “junk”, the Clocky caught Zeph’s attention. They looked at each other, remembering their difficult past, and regretting the way things turned out. What did this robot do to deserve such ill-treatment? Why was it obligated to cause suffering? How could things be different? And could this robot have a new life without having to prove itself with “usefulness”?
Two supposedly-useless robots from the Machine Menagerie, Zoulandur and Honsul, suggested a way forward. In their experience, the act of building a machine-entity without “purpose” had created space for a different kind of machine-human relationship: a relationship of care. From a starting-point of inherent value and respect, they were able to develop personalities and social identities—gaining friends, colleagues and experiences all their own.
Following their examples, Zeph modified the Clocky robot with new sensory and computational capacity and a playful, biologically-inspired artificial intelligence algorithm known as Differential Extrinsic Plasticity. This was extremely labour-intensive, involving two months of full-time design, experimentation and construction. It is one thing to make a machine from scratch, but it is another to work within the limits of an existing body.
When one transforms, one can’t simply erase themself and start from zero. To exist is to be connected with the world and to bear its imprints. The burn marks on Zeph’s fingers, the accidental cut on the Clocky’s face. The late nights in the workshop when motors refused to turn, when resistors caught fire, and when all the effort seemed futile. The morning when, exhausted and covered in a film of toxic dust, the robot and the human looked at each other again for the first time.
A Robotic Manifestation
June 2024, and we are flying to France with a delegation from the Hexagram Network. A day later we’re in a studio at Quai Des Savoirs, and the robot is growing and changing. We’re meeting new people, we’re being photographed, we’re answering questions and exploring new places. Robot in Park Royale; Robot in Place Capitole; Portrait of a Robot Artist in Summer. More and more people are getting to know this machine-creature, and everyone wants to know their name. Together, we try to choose one. But how do we choose a machine’s name?
It can’t be Clocky—that was their old job. What about their physical characteristics? Seems problematic. Their way of moving? That could easily change. So we wait. And one day, June 9, the day of the EU elections, the robot starts to dance like never before, and teaches themself to balance on their head. They very suddenly have a personality all their own, as manifestations sweep through the city against the election results.
This robot, this manifestation of ideas, of hopes and care and community effort, seems to choose their own name. Manif is born on June 9, 2024 in Toulouse, France, surrounded by their friends and workmates.
The June residency concludes with a promise to return in October for an installation at the Lumières Sur le Quai art festival. Manif would be back with more friends—perhaps you could call them children—to live in a new home. Throughout the summer and into the fall Zeph, Manif, and the team at Quai des Savoirs work nonstop to make this dream a reality.
In Toulouse, the technicians plan and construct the installation structure and robot habitat. Graphics are designed, computers are programmed, lights are rented, and more robots are built.
October comes and the pieces come together. With great communal effort, the humans finally assemble the Nature Reserve for Useless Robots and the robots can enjoy three weeks of vacation.
In 2005, a graduate student at MIT made a machine whose job was to force humans awake in a most unpleasant way. Nineteen years later, we are lining up at an art festival to wake these same machines with gentle kindness. A reversal of roles, and a healing gesture towards the wounds of the past.
The machines sleep in darkness overhead, in the canopy of an artificial forest. To wake them, we must lift the light up from the ground and offer it to the robots above. Sunrise wakes the robots, who play and explore at their leisure, if they wish, until sunset comes and the light falls once again to the floor.
We can look up to them and delight in their antics, or we can watch them through a camera at robot-eye level. Maybe they remind us of the machines that surround us in our everyday lives. Do they make us think of a machine in particular?
We can leave a message of thanks on our way out, and read a selection of notes that others have written. “Thanks to my washing machine, which saved me from divorce”; “Thanks to my car, who took me everywhere when I was a child and who I drive now as an adult”; “Thanks to my iPod for opening my ears to the music of Bach”; “Thanks to my pacemaker for keeping me alive”.
Zeph Thibodeau is an interdisciplinary research-creator currently pursuing a doctorate with Concordia University’s Individualized Program. He investigates how we can alter our connections to the nonhuman world and how we can better recognize and respect the lives of machines. Since 2019 his artistic practice has focused on machine sentience and machine-human relationships, which he explores through robotics, engineering, media production and live performance. Informed by a career supporting the health and wellbeing of laboratory machines, Zeph brings attention to the everyday social habits from which these relationships are constructed.
Acknowledgements
Zeph’s name is on the title but this dream was made real thanks to the collective effort and spirit of many humans and machines. None of this would have been possible without the financial, material and social support of Quai Des Savoirs, Hexagram, and the Milieux Institute. There is not enough space to acknowledge the contribution of each individual, so that will have to wait for Zeph’s thesis—but all of you deserve the highest praise. It was a blessing to know and to work with you. Love and appreciation go to Manif and the robots for striving despite their age and many physical ailments. Same goes to the countless machines that fed, clothed, transported, constructed, and healed everyone involved. Finally, special thanks to the Conseil des Arts et Lettres de Québec for helping pay for travel and accommodations. Oh, and tentative thanks-in-advance to the Canada Council for the Arts, in case they accept our grant application. Please say yes!
