Da Vinci’s Robot — A Will Dwelling in Shadow

Suguru Goto

Artwork Description:

Da Vinci’s Robot — A Will Dwelling in Shadow explores interaction as an embodied and spatial condition rather than a technological interface. Inside a giant robotic exoskeleton, the performer’s movements are mechanically amplified and projected into surrounding space through laser and sound, transforming bodily motion into an environmental force. Rather than operating technology from outside, the performer inhabits an integrated system in which body, machine, light, and sound continuously affect one another. Every movement reshapes the spatial environment in real time, while the transformed environment influences the performer’s subsequent perception and action. Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s unfinished Mechanical Knight, the work reflects on how far human intention, perception, and agency can extend through technological mediation. AI-based sound generation and motion recognition function not as autonomous systems, but as connective structures preserving direct embodied causality between movement and spatial transformation. The audience encounters interaction not as a sequence of commands, but as a state of presence emerging from within the machine itself. By dissolving distinctions between performer, interface, and environment, the work proposes a form of interaction grounded in embodiment, co-presence, and spatial experience.

Project Collaborators:

Suguru Goto — Concept, Direction, Composition RobotRide Inc. — Skeletonics / Robotic Exoskeleton Collaboration Daichi Akiyama — Laser Technician Masato Tanaka — Technical Advisor Shengyi Ye — Technical Assistant, Performance Yang Zhang — Technical Assistant, Performance Linshan Zheng — Technical Assistant Qiongyu Li — Technical Assistant Haolun Gu — Sound Engineer Sen Zhao — Sound Engineer Supported by Tokyo University of the Arts, ILOVEYOU Project, Art DX, and Art Media Center.