Identicality And Its Opposite

April 27, 2025

While most of our attention this past year has been taken up by the next AI assistant and what to do with it, robotics has made some stunning advances. Some of this activity has wisely been directed towards real-world applications such as inspection and assembly. Boston Dynamics’ website (https://bostondynamics.com/solutions/) emphasizes their efforts in this direction.

Clone Robotics https://clonerobotics.com/android#x-ray is working at achieving more human-like movement by mimicking the musculature and bone structure of a human body while trying to play it both ways regarding body shape. It’s still early days. Promotion seems to centre on helping you around the house but this is either a clue or a red-herring to lull you into accepting robots in your home.

There are as many types of demonstrations of robot capabilities as there are robotics companies. Some showcase fluidity of movement or lifelikeness of facial expressions, while others demonstrate their development objectives through particular skills such as playing the piano, playing go, playing soccer or table tennis and so on. Toyota demonstrates a comittment to precision via a robot that shot something like 2,300 consecutive basketball goals from a distance of 23 meters.

Agility Robotics is concentrating on moving items from place to place such as from a self-driving vehicle to your doorstep. It seems drone deliveries weren’t all they were hyped up to be.

Unitree Robotics H1 model is already being used for automobile assembly where the tasks are repetitive and precision is crucial. It’s hard to believe Toyota hasn’t been thinking of this or, more likely, already applying it. Instead of the current situation where dedicated robot arms perform a series of assembly tasks at fixed locations, an all-purpose, relocatable humanoid robot could be more cost effective as well as capable of redeployment.

A video released to coincide with the Lunar Year Festival this year showed multiple Unitree Robotics H1 robots dancing in sync along with human performers. It’s an amazing sight and feat, especially so because they weren’t centrally controlled but operating autonomously and taking their cues from each other and the music. This makes the music the central controller as perhaps it’s always been.

Tesla has its Optimus, described by the big E-M as “as a general-purpose robotic assistant designed to perform tasks that are “dangerous, repetitive, and boring” for humans. Nevertheless, it’s a bit light on technical details for human consumption. I don’t rate the synchronous dancing (and what’s with the disco cage? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkAU9x46Xx8) but I much prefer it to massed robots wielding assault rifles and marching in lockstep.

Unitree Robotics also make quadruped (dog-like) robots that can run at 6m per second, navigate stairs, leap across gaps, jump onto 40cm high objects, carry a 20km 15km, and so on. It sounds like they could be useful, but I wouldn’t expect them to be clearing landmines anytime soon. You can see their full range here https://www.unitree.com/b2 but their G1 model is their current top-of-range. It does kung-fu as well as dance moves and this capability is said to have applications in entertainment, security and sports training. The G1 is being taught soccer skills and apparently is the first humanoid robot to perform a backflip without hydraulics. I confess to not knowing why this makes it special. Perhaps hydraulics are a poorer approximation of how human muscles work. Here’s a video demo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciTWx6oACxA

This leads to the question of what synchronized dance means to us humans now that robots can do it better. Do we aspire to dance in sync as well as robots can? Dancing doesn’t change the world but, when it’s symbolic of individual expression then it suddenly matters a lot. Are we being conditioned to value a lack of individuality? Maybe not, but it doesn’t hurt to ask the question. Much like a fighter plane at an air show is given a series of maneuvers to display the acrobatic performance of an aircraft in some nostalgic simulacrum of a WWII aerial dogfight, dancing allows the robot (developers) to showcase lightness, speed, adeptness and a sense of balance and control.

The post Let’s Dance from August 2019 was one of my last from Dubai. Riffing on K. Michael Hay’s book, Modernism and the Posthumanist Subject, in which Siegfried Kracauer pondered the socio-cultural-aesthetic significance of the 1890s British dance troupe The Tiller Girls (leftmost, below), I pondered the significance of synchronized dance as an indicator of societal expectations rather than the economic indicator Kracauer saw. Simply, the thesis was that a higher degree of synchronicity, keeping in line, and not getting out of step are qualities championed in conservative and repressive times.

Kylie Minogue has been awarded an honorary degree, books have been written and I believe one university offers a course if not a degree in Kylie Minogue studies. This all adds weight to the hypothesis that it’s the popular culture and not the highbrow that’s the more accurate indicator of not only where society is but where it’s encouraged to go.

In 2001 Kylie Minogue released the dance-pop, techno-pop, nu-disco song Can’t Get You Out Of My Head by Cathy Dennis and Rob Davis – credit where credit is due. The video, lyrics, music and dance combined to form a strong package united by the theme of repetition. (The official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c18441Eh_WE) At the 2:58 mark is a break from the angular synchronous moves of the dancers and their monochrome outfits, and changes to solo fluid movements as a sign of freedom. It’s not difficult to understand.

Follow up to 2023 and another parcel of pop joy with Kylie Minogue’s Padam Padam (written by Norwegian singer-songwriter Ina Wroldsen; official video extended mix https://youtu.be/7JD69IlA9io?si=VRiLj7TMbPFwyxgw). The dancing is in tight sync but the dancers themselves are as diverse as can be, not just ethnically but aesthetically in terms of body shape and, as far as one can surmise from facial features, outfits and styling, socio-economically. It all goes to show that synchronicity and diversity aren’t mutually exclusive.

The prompt for this post was the video for Cold Hearted, a song by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou. (Official video https://youtu.be/APgx1k-2Tqc?si=-cPQxxcr76zFpa9u) The video is shot in the tightly edited triple-scenographic format we’re seeing a lot of, but the dancers are the US hip-dance troupe JabaWocKeeZ. Visually, they’re contrivedly undiverse and, somewhat amazingly, the members all seem to have the same body shape and size. Their identities are completely concealed by masks and gloves to prevent unnecessary distraction on the one hand, and to increase the appearance of uniformity on the other. The dancing is some of the tightest I’ve seen and evokes that feeling you get when you know you’re seeing consummate skill.

Yet, for all the synchronicity, we look for tiny irregularities and reassurance we’re not looking at robots or something AI generated. Only the dancer at the front is occasionally permitted a degree of individuality (as if to speak for the group) by a nodding or rocking of the head. Individual moves are present but as parts of what Krackaeur would call the mass ornament in that they’re directed towards a single aesthetic effect. I’m not exactly sure what all this means, but the 2:37 mark for example, where there is an inventive and thrilling series of moves that unfolds like a flower opening, indicates to me that diversity can not only survive within an apparent uniformity, but can be put to good effect as a new and subversive kind of mass ornament suited to our times.