Zach Duer

Scylla System is a flexible, performance-based testing ground for human-drone interactivity and improvised spatial storytelling. The system involves five dancers improvising with ten choreographed, indoor-flying, light show drones. The twenty minute performance unfolds across a series of three narrative stages—shifting from a sensual garden to a hostile matrix to an ethereal tornado—in which the drones adopt distinct attitudes toward the dancers, forcing them to adapt. While the flight paths of the drones are predetermined, their avoidance sensors are manipulated by the dancers to create an responsive dynamic of control and agency. Our research highlights how pre-programmed flight paths coupled with sensor-based interactions can create expressive motion that evokes empathetic responses and emotional resonance, leading to the perception of machine agency and intelligent co-presence.