The Reflective Interaction research group at Paris based EnsadLab studies phenomenology, experience and embodiment by constructing simple robots that share one aspect: they fumble and even misbehave. The experience of viewing a fumbling robot can be strong. Our projection of intention onto its behavior, and its inability to achieve this intention, collectively make the robot appear helpless and the experience of viewing uncomfortable.
Their project "The Behavior of Things" is interested in the ways everyday objects (tables, chairs or lamps) or simple abstract shapes (cubes, spheres, cylinders) can express a certain behavior through movement. How to give the impression that such objects hold a personality and act on their own or according to the surroundings? How to design objects that disobey and misbehave? How can clumsiness, impreciseness and unpredictability of bots and their constituent parts be exploited to create interesting behaviors?
Development of quick prototypes of animated “behavioral” objects enables a practice-based research method that explores the potential of a misbehavior aesthetics. See some of their results here.