Ben Johnson’s first poetry show is a philosophical dialogue
on creation and robotic life. We meet Herbert who’s life has such an impact on
a curious boy, it inspires him to create intelligent robotic life. Johnson’s
narrative is personable and gripping as we follow our young boys Shelly like
journey on the death of his uncle and his thwarted desire to said uncle back to
life. We move into a brief history of robotics and on to a personal views for and against robots.
Johnson’s show is engaging and full of multi-layered
interlinked images. His delivery wouldn’t be out of place on Radio 4, Click or
as a television documentary for Sky Arts. The set has functioning robot
Ozymandias, a robot Johnson build himself over the time he created the show
itself. The body parts were printed out on a 3 D printer and Ozymandias brings
the future world and its robotic challenges to life. Johnson shows us
singularity in an operating robot when Ozymandias speaks in the show.
His poems range from straight forward free verse narrative
to biting satirical ballads which chilling list poems about the rights or lack
of rights of robots. The show is interspersed with video clips that juxtapose or
support his narrative.
His dry humour also subjects T.S Elliot to the Turing test.
The conclusion is hilarious. His tackling of human morals and how they apply to
robots via Christian creation myth is a fascinating display of Chinese whispers
on an ethical level.
Johnson’s future after he educates us about the uncanny
valley, is to show us a world that first embraces then rejects robots. There
are fascinating parallels to human rights history such as the robot taking the
bus and the bigoted results. ‘No Robot’ remains my favourite piece listing
everything a robot cannot do such as own a cat. Johnson pushes us to think
beyond our limited view of machines.
I was interested to see how Johnson was going to present his
show. He isn’t a theatrical performer and reads his poetry. His clever work
around, reading from a book, which just happens to be a bible, works very well
because he works hard to maintain his eye contact and engagement with the
audience.
Johnson’s show is so rich, I would be happy to see this show
several times, to fully absorb and appreciate all the varied views and points
he puts across. My only challenges were he needed to slow down and leave gaps
between his links and the actual poems to give the audience time to digest the
rich tapestry of ideas and images he presents. We also needed the robots voice
to be louder, the venue competed
On a personal level as a poet Johnson’s poetry is so finely
crafted it makes me want to be a better poet.
Two of us have decided to write or finish writing our shows and have a
live reading in April. This is the effect a good work of art can have. y I have
a deep interest in robots and robotics and Johnson’s offering is an excellent
interesting humane addition to the debate.
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