Maayan Sheleff: Frankie, the Documentarian Robot at MIT

frankie_the_documentarian_robot

RU Alum, Maayan Sheleff's project, Frankie, has been added to MIT's _docubase, an interactive curated database of the people, projects, and technologies transforming documentary in the digital age.

Frankie is a documentary robot that interviews people about their emotions, attempting to ‘learn’ what it means to be human. It responds to emotions both with language and eye movements, creating computer-generated, emotion inspired videos.

Frankie is made up of two cameras that serve as eyes, a cellphone that serves as a nose, and a television screen that serves as a mouth. Frankie speaks in English, with her camera “eyes” simulating facial expression and her television screen “mouth” simulating mouth movement. With well-exposed cameras, Frankie examines issues such as agency, control, and privacy, questioning how these things affect us in a world in which nearly every moment is documented and mediated.