When Do Puppets Become Digital?

"As the physical distance between the performer and the object widens, the amount of technology needed to bridge the gap increases.  Moving the puppet's center of gravity outside the body of the puppeteer requires more and more sophisticated linking systems"(Kaplin 12).  The idea is interesting, in that creative concepts emerge from physical truths.  As a bare and simple example, we can observe the relationship between human control with an object as the connection changes from direct hand contact with the object to the beginning of leverage structures to assist human control.  Why does distance (and leverage as well) decrease control?  Kaplin's analysis of "linking systems" may also be interpreted as the beginning of materiality, in which the object becomes its own center of gravity from the material center(performer), occupying its own place in time, therefore, as anything becomes outside of the performer's body, time and place, it also becomes material and requires its individual interaction; learning. Humans begin to follow the rules of the material.  Distance requires extended human functions, but also, the object develops towards its own unique "life", finally rendering the material center (performer, included) as an extension.  

More to come! Contemporary artists, non-western mentalities about materialism and control, material-distance-analog-digital relationship.