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Designing Affection

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Designing Affection 9 DESIGNING AFFECTION On the Curious Case of Machine Cuteness Joel Gn Introduction This chapter explores the relationship between aesthetics and machines such as social robots, through an examination of how cute design brings together questions of embodiment, mechanization and intimacy. While robotic objects in the previous century were for the most part built to automate manufacturing and other related industries, the field today includes machines that solicit human affection by simulating pets and partners. Social robots, as the adjective “social” indicates, are approachable, interactive partners that are capable of more than just mechanical gestures or functions. A human who interacts with a robotic pet tends not to regard it as an impersonal piece of machinery, instead overlooking its machine-based intricacies in favor of its simplicity and predictability of form. The Sony AIBO, for example, is a robotic dog that was launched in 1999, but when it was discontinued in 2006, owners, together with Sony engineers, continued to operate AIBO “hospitals” and centers for replacement parts until supplies were used up (Mochizuki and Pfanner). At that point, with no chance of getting their pets to function, some owners (particularly those in Japan) even held funeral rites to mourn the “demise” of their AIBO (Brown). Such a phenomenon illustrates the important contribution of cuteness to social robotics, for it is the AIBO’s appearance and behavior that affected the owners to regard, if not love them as real dogs. At the same time, the efficacy of cute design also organizes perception within a nuanced social space. That is, in experiencing the cuteness of the social robot, Copyright © 2016. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Group. All rights © 2016. Taylor & Francis Copyright users make an interpretation that takes reference from specific sociocultural resources, similar to how consumers perceive and respond to the iconic Hello Kitty as if she were a friend who understands their feelings and shares their interests. This interpretation not only simulates certain social phenomena, but also embeds The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness, edited by Joshua Paul Dale, et al., Taylor & Francis Group, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=4766965. Created from washington on 2020-05-08 16:01:23. 176 Joel Gn ideals that go about determining, if not defining what an acceptable subject-object relationship is. To be sure, cute design is not an absolute necessity for a social robot, but I argue that it is a powerful stylistic device for enhancing the user experience. However, this particular type of acceptance points to other questions concerning the ideals of form, for in a cultural milieu where new media technologies are fragmenting and resolving the human body into data, animated characters, plush toys, and digital avatars are recognized for their controversial similarities to biological bodies, in the very specific sense that they are adored and loved in spite of their visible artificiality. The cute design of social robots, in particular, brings this controversy to the fore, by adopting a human/animal form that is at once simplified, yet censored. From the robots depicted in science fiction media, to real-life applications like the Sony AIBO, these machines do not just conflate the boundary between humans and machines, but point to the machine’s transition from an instrument of mechanical labor to an artefact of emotional investment. By questioning this boundary, the bodies of social robots become a useful lens for looking into our ideals and anxieties about otherness. By considering the trends that have shaped the design of machine bodies, this chapter seeks to elucidate the compatibility of cute design with social robots and advances the notion that the former, in attempting to make the object approachable, retains an engagement with the uncanny as a site of difference, even as it is problematically oriented towards a homogenous form of affection. I adopt a relatively broad approach to the use of the term uncanny in this study, employing it to include the response to any human characteristic or expression that is grotesque, repulsive and undesirable. Hence, “anti-cute”objects, or designs which remix cute features with those antithetical to cuteness would qualify as an engagement with the negative effects of the uncanny. The above approach allows an appreciation of the intersections between robotics design and Freudian psychoanalysis, along with delineating the ways in which the experience of cuteness lends itself to a familiarity that is both comforting and disconcerting. In addition, I employ contemporary examples in the emerging field of social robotics to demonstrate that the application of cute design is an industrialization of the social, insofar as it reproduces and formalizes a particular affection complicit with the logic of consumption. Cute machines, therefore, are not simply proxies for human interaction, but—by systematically predetermining what and how such relationships ought to be—eventually undermine what I term the “differentiation of the lovable” that the subjective experience of cuteness engenders. Copyright © 2016. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Group. All rights © 2016. Taylor & Francis Copyright Features and Effects of Cuteness If cuteness enhances the appeal of an object, what properties are essential to this enhancement and how specifically does it afford a positive, even intimate The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness, edited by Joshua Paul Dale, et al., Taylor & Francis Group, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=4766965. Created from washington on 2020-05-08 16:01:23. On the Curious Case of Machine Cuteness 177 connection between the human and the machine? The adjective “cute,” which refers to a thing that is attractive or endearing, offers a cursory view of these properties, while its East Asian equivalent (e.g. 可爱 in Chinese; 可愛い in Japanese) pertains to a condition of the lovable. Interpretations of cuteness are certainly dependent on cultural nuance, but features like rounded, infantilized facial/body structures and a clumsy demeanor are prevalent. Collectively, these features can be used to construct a non-threatening, affable object that solicits the subject’s care and affection (Genosko; Kinsella 221; Morreall 40). These physical features highlight a few guidelines regarding cute design. First, it is an aesthetic of smallness, whereby the object is placed in a position of dependence on the subject. This social difference often implies that the object does not appear to be either physically or psychologically equal to the subject; instead the object takes the form of a child-like, tyke-sized other with a minimal and smooth exterior that is attenuated for negative complexity. In other words, cuteness incorporates a propensity to ameliorate or remove sentiments that are explicitly repulsive, disgusting or threatening. Second, cuteness also draws attention to a form of indulgent control, in which the affection for the cute object is taken by the subject as a non-conflictual gratification. For product designers, this gratification pertains to an affective appeal that solicits positive sentiments from the subject. The particular affection engendered by cuteness produces an opportunity for the subject to be a “nurturer through consumption” (Genosko). Third, cuteness leverages the quality of simplicity to produce objects that are iconic and open to varying interpretations. In his case study of Hello Kitty, Brian McVeigh notes that the character’s simplicity, or plainness, “characterizes her as a cryptic symbol waiting to be interpreted and filled with meanings” (234). For McVeigh, Hello Kitty represents an affordance of cuteness, in that this character grants the opportunity for consumers to use Hello Kitty’s image and merchandise as a form of self-expression (234). At the same time, the cute object’s simplicity also contributes to its iconicity, because it can collapse multiple meanings into a single image or theme. As a stylistic device, cute design can act as “shorthand” for sentiments that would otherwise prove to be more difficult to express. Rather than ascribing individual traits to a character or object, designers often use cuteness as a basic system to code and design objects palatable to their target market. Iconicity is also relevant in contexts where the commercial success of a product is highly dependent on the legibility of its idea or image. Hello Kitty and other cute products, for example, are not only centered on a single theme, but encompass a wider range of issues regarding the systematization of aesthetics within mass culture that will be discussed at a Copyright © 2016. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Group. All rights © 2016. Taylor & Francis Copyright later point. How exactly is cuteness a human factor? Machines aside, the adjective “cute” is generally applied to human infants and certain animal species like dogs, cats or bears. Its application is based on the hypothesis that “the recognition and The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness, edited by Joshua Paul Dale, et al., Taylor & Francis Group, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=4766965. Created from washington on 2020-05-08 16:01:23. 178 Joel Gn appreciation of the specialness of the young” provides a species with the advantages of survival (Morreall 39–40). An evolutionary approach taking this argument into account would thus consider cuteness as an ethological factor that fosters the attachment between parent and child. However, the differences between infants and adults point to a pertinent incongruence in appearance and behavior. In biological terms, infants are not a different species from adults, but they do have a smaller, chubbier body structure and a lack of spatial awareness, which in turn allows them to be perceived as clumsy inferiors. Cuteness engenders an intimacy between subject and object that involves the cathexis of human qualities onto an object of affection.
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