My Robot Companion

Alex May developed My Robot Companion with Anna Dumitriu as an interactive robotic installation built around the question of what people want from a domestic robot. Using HARR1, a humanoid research platform developed with the University of Hertfordshire, the project explored how small behaviours such as boredom, gaze, touch, and facial familiarity change the way people respond to machines. Rather than presenting the robot as a tool or novelty, the work places visitors in close proximity to a figure whose actions feel social, awkward, and emotionally charged.

The work is built around small behavioural cues, but those cues are enough to trigger attachment, discomfort, and projection. Instead of asking whether the robot is truly social, the piece watches how people supply social meaning for it. That unstable handover between engineered action and human interpretation remains central to May’s wider concerns with presence, memory, and belief.

Additional notes

• Created with Anna Dumitriu in collaboration with Dr Michael Walters and Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn of the Adaptive Systems Research Group, University of Hertfordshire.
• Developed with support from Arts Council England and the University of Hertfordshire.
• Commissioned by Science Gallery Dublin for HUMAN+ in 2011 using the CHARLY research robot body and a projected robot head.
• Later versions explored robot boredom, face touching, and the Familiar head, which blended visitors’ facial features using a depth camera.
• Exhibited at Science Gallery Dublin, the Science Museum in London, Lighthouse Brighton, Kinetica Art Fair, Watermans, the V and A Museum, Fabrica Gallery, QUAD Derby, the Royal Academy of Arts, Bletchley Park, Ravensbourne, Phoenix Leicester, and NESTA FutureFest.
• Awarded joint first prize for public understanding of artificial intelligence by AISB.
• Video documentation: Vimeo