ArtBots
2004 (preview)
The Robot Talent Show (Sep. 17-19 '04)
New York City, NY - It's an ArtBots invasion in Harlem! The
Third Annual ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show will take place on
September 17, 18, & 19 from noon to 6:00pm at The Mink Building
on 126th Street & Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem. Featuring the
work of 20 artists and groups from seven countries, the show
celebrates the strange and wonderful collision of shifty artists,
disgraced engineers, high/low/no tech hackers, rogue scientists,
beauty school dropouts, backyard pyros, and industrial espionage
that has come to define the emerging field of robotic art. Participants
include robots that sketch, carve, float, wiggle, hum, ring,
grow, wander, and sing, as well a number of works the form and
function of which are not yet well understood.
The ArtBots - 2004
ArtSBot (Art Symbiotic roBots)
Leonel Moura
sensors, servomotors, microchip, wheels, batteries, plastic,
ink pens (2004)
ArtSBot is a set of autonomous robots that can produce paintings
and drawings based on randomness and stigmergy. The paintings
are the result of a self-organized process based on mobile robots
that interact via the environment.
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Leonel Moura is an artist born in Lisbon, Portugal, whose
art merges with architecture, philosophy, science and technology.
He has published several books on art, social analyses and science.
http://www.lxxl.pt/artsbot
Acknowledgements: ArtSBot was funded by FCT (National Foundation
for Science and Technology) under the scientific co-ordination
of Henrique Garcia Pereira (Technical University of Lisbon).
Robotics advice assured by ISR (Institute of Systems and Robotics
of the Technical University of Lisbon) and physical implementation
performed by IdMind.
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Bionic Log
William Tremblay
Wood, steel, vinyl, latex, nylon, electronics (2003)
Bionic Log is a pneumatic robotic sculpture built around a
section of tree trunk. Inside the log is a bank of pneumatic
valves driven by a simple microcontroller program. These valves
permit the flow of compressed air to the actuators in the limbs
of the robot, which contract in a manner very similar to animal
muscles. Although the control mechanism is simple, the resulting
motions are very recognizable as human gestures, albeit the gestures
of a confused or wounded person. Bionic Log is an extrapolated
collision of the conflicting human imperatives of expediency
and sentimentality, at once supporting and disproving the comforting
notion that technology can solve any problem.
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William Tremblay is an artist and interactive media programmer.
His work addresses issues of human interaction with the technological
world: the choices we make and the prices we pay. He tends to
create machines and large scale installations. His work has been
shown in numerous venues, among them the Kitchen in New York,
Boston's Computer Museum, the List Center for Visual Arts at
MIT, the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston, The Boston
Center for the Arts and First Night Boston. He is co-inventor
of the Virtual Reality Chair, for which he holds a patent. He
attended the Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts
College of Art, and is the proud owner of a Bridgeport milling
machine, which he used to make custom parts for the bionic log.
He lives in Boston where he opportunistically employs robotics,
video and other technologies in ways they were never intended
to be used.
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DrawBot
Modding Contest and Workshop
Jonah Brucker-Cohen
plastic cups, motors, markers, glue, tape, your imagination
(2003)
Drawbot is a drawing system that anyone can use without having
to learn electronics. It is a simple bot that mixes standard
drawing materials (in this case magic markers) with weighted
motors and plastic cups. When the cups vibrate, they draw circles
and lines depending on their overall weight and power.
The Drawbot Modding Competition allows visitors to ArtBots
to create simple Drawbots from the materials provided and encourages
them to bring along any scrap materials (discarded electronics,
junk, etc...) they want to integrate into their creation. All
bots will be on display, can be taken home, and the winning bot
will receive an award at the end of the show.
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Jonah Brucker-Cohen works as a Researcher the Human Connectedness
Group at Media Lab Europe in Dublin, Ireland and is a PhD candidate
in the Disruptive Design Team of the Networks and Telecommunications
Research Group (NTRG) at Trinity College Dublin. His focus is
on subverting existing relationships to human/networked interfaces
by building new real-world inputs to networks, redefining how
information is used and disseminated, and shifting virtual processes
into physical forms through networked devices and experiences.
His work has been shown internationally at events such as Ars
Electronica, Transmediale, ISEA, the Whitney Museum of American
ArtÕs Artport and more.
http://www.coin-operated.com/projects/drawbot
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Hand-eye
Alex Baker
plywood, LCD screens, cameras, batteries, wires (1999)
Hand-eye is a wearable device designed to make seeing into
an active and reaching sense.
It consists of 2 wrist mounted cameras which connect via cables
to 2 LCD screens mounted inside a viewing helmet. The screens
are placed directly over each eye - the left eye seeing the left
hand view and the right the right hand view. As well as placing
sight into an area of movement each eye is independent and so
also gives the wearer the opportunity to be able to see in two
directions at once.
For the wearer the environment is transformed. Although now
enabled with two roving eyes each one has quite a narrow field
of view lacking our normal peripheral vision. Simple tasks like
walking across a room have to be re-learnt, although most adapt
quite fast.
As a viewer on the outside one watches the tentative steps
of the wearer as their arms and hands constantly move scanning
the environment. It becomes almost like a dance with each different
wearer responding differently, some staying tentative others
quickly gaining confidence. It becomes evident how the placement
of simple technology can have a strong effect on behaviour. How
much of their attention is devoted to the relationship with Hand-eye
and responding to the way the information that it provides transforms
even the most basic environments.
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Born 1974 in Hertfordshire, England. Lives in London. Works
with sound, video, performance and machines experimenting with
the transportation and transmission of experience and event,
communication, voice and conversation. BA Middlesex University,
MFA Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.
Acknowledgements: Ray Finnis Charitable Trust
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LEMUR:
League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots
Eric Singer, Jeff Feddersen, Bil Bowen, Milena Iossifova
aluminum, steel, motors, solenoids, electronics (2002-present)
LEMUR is a Brooklyn-based collective of artists and technologists
creating robotic musical instruments. LEMUR was the winner of
the Audience Choice award at ArtBots 2003. In 2004, LEMUR will
be back with new robots, including ModBots (miniature modular
percussive robots).
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http://lemurbots.org
Acknowledgements: LEMUR is supported in part by grants from
the Rockefeller Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts,
the Greenwall Foundation and the American Composers Forum. We
also thank Harvestworks (http://harvestworks.org) for sponsoring
LEMUR.
Photo credits: Brendan FitzGerald, Bil Bowen
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Living
Particles
Ralf Schreiber
solarpanels, different electronic components, small motors,
wire (2001-2004 (work in progress))
Living particles is an audio kinetic installation that consists
of many different electronic modules, which are suspended from
coloured elastic bands and together form an organic system. The
individual components receive their whole energy from small solar
cells. The light is transformed in electric energy. This energy
is transformed in small sounds and motion. All modules of the
installation are based on very simple analogue electronic circuits.
The amount of voltage is very low like in biological systems,
so every module is very sensitive and works astabile. Changing
light condition affects the quality and level of the emitted
frequencies. All modules are connected among themselves. The
appearance of the whole installation represents the intern electronic
structures of each module. The energy is shared and feed backed
in the system. The Signals of grouped modules interfere amongst
themselves and with the sounds of the environment. The result
is a turbulent surface full of chaotic motions, vibrations and
undulations, small sounds, superimposing, enhancing or interrupting
each other.
---------------------------------------------------------
Born 1964 in Cologne, Germany. Lives in Cologne and works
with audio installations, robotics, chaotic processes, auto active
systems and silence. 1999-2002 Postgraduate studies at the Academy
of Media Arts Cologne, 1993-1997 MA studies at the Muenster College
of Art
http://www.kineticus.com/homepage.php?artist=RalSch&user=
Acknowledgements: Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Mark Tilden,
photos by Ernas Simkunas
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"machines will eat itself"
/ www.superbot.tk
Franz Alken
java/php/html/webl (2003-4)
Those who enter the net lose their privacy: countless concerns
are financed by trading with user data - user profiles are generated,
surfing habits are stored and sold to those who can then optimise
their services. Is there a possibility to get rid off this "spionage"?
This is the endeavour to attack these conditions by methodically
reducing the value of the collected data: bots - programms, equipped
with virtual character profiles - travel the net, permanently
looking for possibilities to prove their presence in the databases
of companies.
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Born in 1974, Frankfurt/m, studies media arts at the Academy
of Visual Arts in Leipzig, living and working in Leipzig, Germany.
http://www.superbot.tk
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Open
Sesame
Sean Salmon, James Tichenor, Vasil Daskalopoulos, Phillip
Stanley-Marbell
sythetic felt, nitinol, custom pcb boards (2004)
In 1851 Gottfreid Semper Published The Four Elements of Architecture
in which he divided the practice of architecture in to the study
of four basic elements: (1) the earthwork, (2) the hearth, (3)
the framework/roof, and (4) the lightweight enclosing membrane.
Of these four elements Semper placed the greatest emphasis of
research d importance on the lightweight membrane that was traditionally
a textile. This woven surface was seen as having a perceptual
primacy as the horizontal surface in architecture, and to better
understand our perception and the possibilities of this surface
required the technical study of how this surface is constructed.
The technical innovations of the early twentieth century in
building construction allowed architects to leverage Semper's
ideas of a textile surface as enclosing membrane into modernisms
ideas of "free-plan" and "free-facade". Accepting
the lightweight woven membrane as the primary architectural element,
this project looks to incorporate the transformative power of
electricity and information into the craft of production of a
wall surface. Our robot will be a surface that opens and blooms
in response to the sounds of the visitors. Hung on the existing
walls as a wall surfacing element this second surface consists
of layers of felt that are cut in patterns that allow the surface
to open, revealing an psychedelic array of shifting patterns
and colors. Pulling from the world of the baroque and drug soaked
psychedelica the surface similarly presents an altered state
of reality in with the surface of the walls dissolve and responds
to our actions as viewers. The electronics of the piece are fairly
simple; it uses a series of small microphones as sensors distributed
across the surface to measure volume levels at points. This information
is fed to a microcontroller that in-turn actuates a network of
shape memory alloy wires. The intelligence or craft of the project
is in the leveraging of a technical understating of how a woven
surface can be made to increase the expressive and perceptual
effects of the electronics in the project. That is, there is
an interplay between the laser-cut incisions on the felt plane
and the network of vector lines of the actuator wires that creates
a shallow space surface of complexity.
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After completing degrees in architecture at the New Jersey
Institute of Technology, Sean Salmon and James Tichenor have
worked together under the name FourPlus, exploring ideas of space
and interactivity in as series of installations at locations
ranging from the annual D.U.M.B.O arts festival to noise music
performance spaces. James has completed Masters Degree in Design
in Computation at MIT's Department of Architecture where he worked
as a researcher designing and prototyping reactive surfaces and
researching their position in art/architectural history of decorative
arts. This fall he will be a researcher at Interaction Institute
Ivrea. Sean Salmon, after getting his architectural license,
is returning to academia to study at ITP at NYU in Fall 2004.
Vasil Daskalopoulos and Phillip Stanley-Marbell collaborate on
software projects for the Inferno operating system. Vasil is
continuing his computer engineering education at Rutgers and
Phillip is a researcher is at Carnegie Mellon focusing on smart
matter
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Ornithoids
Daniel Canazon Howe, Jeff Han
aluminum, acrylic, fencewire, motors, props, scraps (2004)
Ornithoids is an interactive, kinetic, sound-sculpture composed
of rotor-propelled, sonically-enabled robots flying through a
large wire enclosure. Each self-contained robot is equipped with
its own speaker for sound output and is capable of movement in
all directions within a plane. While interactions continuously
occur between the RotoBots themselves, each is also able to 'sense'
the presence and movements of audience members and to vary its
behavior accordingly, attempting to facilitate interaction. Each
robot is programmed with a unique behavior set ranging from submissive
to dominant, solitary to social, and fearful to hostile -- mirroring
aspects of our own relationship to technology. As the simple
behaviors of individual robots yield more complex and unexpected
system behavior, the work interrogates the disparities between
a system's intention and its realization in the world, inviting
us to consider how such gaps impact our social responsibility
as designers of such systems.
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Daniel C. Howe is a digital artist & doctoral candidate
at the NYU Media Research Lab. His interests include sound design,
alternative human-computer interfaces & social aspects of
technology. In addition to a background in improvisational music
& creative writing, Daniel has masters' degrees in Computer
Science (UW) & Interactive Media (ITP), as well as nearly
ten years of industry experience as a programmer, software designer,
artist and educator.
Jeff Han is a senior research scientist at the NYU Media Research
Lab, focusing on the areas of computer graphics, computer vision,
multimedia systems, and interactive techniques. Most recently,
he developed the highly successful vision tracking system for
ACCESS, which has been exhibited at Eyebeam, SIGGraph 2003, and
Ars Electronica 2003. Jeff studied computer science and electrical
engineering at Cornell University.
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/ornithoids/
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Recycle
Robot
Dan Paluska
cardboard. electric motor. display case (2004)
The recycle robot is a cardboard automaton who reuses and
recycles all day long. It diligently recycles every box it uses
and only uses recycled boxes.
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Dan Paluska is a robotics researcher and artist based in the
boston area. He is currently pursuing his phd in mechanical engineering
at MIT. In research and art he is interested in the intersection
of humans and their automation.
http://plainfront.com
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Self Preservation Machine
Aaron Arendt
Metal, wood, plastic, fabric, cowboy boots (2001)
The Self Preservation Machine is mankind's last line of defense
against the ever increasing dangers of the modern world. Ride
comfortably inside its padded interior, hermetically sealed from
the world around you. The S.P.M.'s thick exoskeleton, robust
punching arms and swift kicking legs will protect you from the
aggressive attack of any man, woman, animal, natural disaster,
or other* harmful attack that you can think of.
*Has not been tested to withstand a nuclear blast, but in
theory, it should work.
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Aaron Arendt is a graduate of the MFA program at the University
of Minnesota, Where he studied kinetic sculpture. He currently
lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He makes sculptures and short
films about experimental machines, vehicles, and weapons that
are designed to make the world a 'safer' place.
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Sisyphus
Bruce Shapiro
sand, steel ball, custom two-axis motion control system,
custom path design and control software (1998-2003)
A magnet traces complex, computer controlled paths beneath--
while above, a steel ball in a field of sand creates dune patterns
in its wake. As in the Greek myth from which it draws its name,
Sisyphus rolls its "boulder" endlessly, only to witness
the cyclic undoing of this labor.
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Bruce Shapiro (1957) received his medical degree from the
University of Minnesota in 1983. After practicing as an internist
for five years he left medicine to pursue his fascination with
connecting computers to stuff that moves. He has been following
that passion wherever it leads him for the past 14 years.
http://www.taomc.com
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String
Ball Collector
Ellen Lake and Chris Green
steel, electronics, motor, acrylic, nylon (2002)
The String Ball Collector is a small metal machine that travels
in a circle attempting to gather hand wrapped string balls. As
the machine successfully picks up certain balls, others fall
out. Over time, patterns begin to form marking the successes
and failures of the machine and charting the path of the String
Ball Collector. Ideas emerge about collecting, obsession, routine,
expectation, and disappointment.
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Ellen Lake received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland,
California in 2002. She studied sculpture, video, and electronic
arts. She is now working on a series of experimental documentaries
on collecting and hoarding.
Chris Green is a hydrologist working at the US Geological
Survey in Menlo Park, California. He received his PhD in Hydrologic
Sciences from University of California, Davis in 2002. Ellen
Lake and Chris Green are currently collaborating on their next
mechanical sculpture.
http://www.ellenlake.com/sculpture/sbc.html
Acknowledgements: Mills College Art Department
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Thoughts go by air
Machine Cent'red Humanz [Chip Kali, Lahaag, and Spess]
helium, latex and electronics, hmm (2004)
It should not be too difficult to build a a species of independently
flying creatures that communicate among each other, using human
energy and presence. Like Hitchcock's birds suggest: with their
own systems of collective and collaborative intelligence driving
on humans mobility as a source and interface.
This is the first test of a flock of balloons that can typically
communicate with another flock in a distance, and exchange information
regarding its own shape and movement. It can learn to adapt and
act differently than local observations would suggest. Hence
it will enact on human forms of gathering like: parties, openings/closings,
bingo events, artbot shows, exhibitions and performances. Plans
are drawn to have simultaneous flocks in Den Hague (Nederland),
Trnva (Slovakia) and Brussels (Belgium).
"Of course due to the lack of wings on human bodies"
(Chip Kali) "Machines that deal with people rather than
people that deal with machines!" (Lahaag)
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machine cent'red humanz _ is a collective of machinic artists,
swinging on the hooks that tear apart the fabric of a recent
rhetorical past to uncover an activity based future! [artbots,
installations, performances, streams] "everything that can
be marketed will eventually vanish"
http://mxhz.org
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Three Blind Mice
ART: Art Re-envisions Technology: Remo Campopiano,
Guy Marsden & Jonathan Schull
glass, plastic, electronics, three white mice (2004)
Three Blind Mice is a performance art piece by three white
mice driving three small glass cars. The mice will have already
logged on enough driver training hours to be adept at operating
the vehicles. What they choose to do with their mobility is yet
to be seen.
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A.R.T. is an art collaborative in the USA made up of Remo
Campopiano, Guy Marsden and Jonathan. We came together in 2001
to create a piece for the Complexity exhibition at the Dorsky
Museum in New Paltz, NY. Our collaboration produced Eight-bit
Ant Farm http://www.artreenvisionstechnology.com/projects/ebaf/index.htm.
Since then we have formalized our collective under the name A.R.T.
(Art Re-envisions Technology) and have been working on a number
of new projects including Three Blind Mice.
Remo Campopiano is a sculptor living and working in Seekonk,
Massachusetts. Campopiano is best known for his live-art museum
installations, for which he has won many fellowships, including
a National Endowment for the Arts Award.
In 1992 he led an international art movement out of a small
storefront in Soho called ARTNETWEB; a network of people and
projects investigating new media in the practice of art. ARTNETWEB
culminated in the historical Internet-performance art exhibition
at MIT entitled PORT: Navigating Digital Culture. Campopiano
interests include bio-art, robotic-art, visualizing historical
time, visualizing digital data flow including the Internet and
helping younger artist as a mentor.
Guy Marsden began creating and exhibiting electronic artworks
in the mid 1980's. His early work included controlled discharge
neon plasma in complex glass envelopes. A continuing series called
"Digital Numeric Relevators" satirize our implicit
trust in electronically represented numeric information. His
work has shown in museums and galleries throughout the US and
Canada. He enjoys multiple parallel and serial careers including
motion picture special effects in the 1980's. Currently he operates
ART TEC providing engineering services to his fellow artists
and also to inventors. He also makes fine wood furnishings and
recently began creating turned wood artworks.
Jonathan Schull is a biological psychologist with a longstanding
interest in adaptive systems, evolutionary psychology and the
spread of information through intelligent networks. Schull has
done scholarship and invention in intellectual property protection,
information commerce, the new information economy the nature
of intelligence in biological and artificial systems. A professor
of Information Technology at Rochester Institute of Technology
he is currently focusing on information visualization and the
development of novel personal interfaces to the information ecology.
http://artreenvisionstechnology.com
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Topobo
Hayes Raffle, Amanda Parkes, Hiroshi Ishii
injection molded ABS resin, polyurethane resin, embedded
servo motors, custom electronics, and custom software (2002-4)
What is it like to sculpt with motion? Topobo is a 3D constructive
assembly system embedded with kinetic memory, the ability to
record and playback physical motion. By snapping together a combination
of Passive (static) and Active (motorized) components, people
can quickly assemble dynamic biomorphic forms like plants, animals
and skeletons with Topobo, animate those forms by pushing, pulling,
and twisting them, and observe the system repeatedly play back
those motions. For example, a moose can be constructed and then
taught to gesture and walk by twisting its body and legs. The
moose will then repeat those movements and walk repeatedly. Topobo
works like an extension of the body givng one's gestural fluency
computation and memory.
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Hayes Raffle is a practicing artist and designer researching
the relationships between people and machines. Recently, Hayes
has created toys, systems and devices for people to use gesture,
touch and natural physical skills to improve communication, to
facilitate artistic expression and to understand dynamic system
behavior. Before joining the MIT Media Lab, Hayes studied sculpture
at Yale, helped design and develop the ZOOB building system and
ran his own art and design studio in California. He is the winner
of several internationally recognized art and design awards and
has shown his work in exhibitions around the United States and
Europe.
Amanda Parkes is a designer currently researching in the Tangible
Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. Her research interests include
developing intuitive and investigative learning and design tools
as well as explorations into the relationship of gesture, form,
materiality and computation in the context of hybrid physical-digital
objects. Previously, Amanda worked as a media exhibit developer
at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and developed installations
and programs for the Venice Guggenheim and the National Science
Museum in London. Amanda holds a B.S. in Product Design Engineering
and a B.A. in Art History from Stanford University and has received
various international art and design awards.
Hiroshi Ishii is a tenured Associate Professor of Media Arts
and Sciences, at the MIT Media Lab. He joined the MIT Media Laboratory
in October 1995, and founded the Tangible Media Group to pursue
a new vision of Human Computer Interaction: "Tangible Bits."
His team seeks to change the "painted bits" of desktop
computers to "tangible bits" by giving physical form
to digital information and computation. Ishii and his students
have presented their vision of "Tangible Bits" at a
variety of academic, industrial design, and media art venues
including ACM SIGCHI, ACM SIGGRAPH, Industrial Design Society
of America, and Ars Electronica, emphasizing that the development
of tangible interfaces requires the rigor of both scientific
and artistic review. Since July 2002, Ishii has co-directed the
Thing That Think Consortium at the MIT Media Lab.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~hayes/topobo
Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge Josh Lifton's
significant contribution developing Topobo's firmware. Other
collaborators include Cristobal Garcia, Wesley Jin, Andy Lieserson,
Brian Mazzeo, Ben Recht, Jeremy Schwartz, Elysa Wan, Nick Williams,
and Laura Yip. Thanks also to Arthur Ganson, Mitchell Resnick
and Bakhtiar Mikhak for ideas and encouragement, the members
of the Tangible Media Group, and all of the professional educators
who have supported this project. This project has been supported
by the MIT Media Lab's Things That Think consortium.
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Tribot
Nicholas Stedman & Rhya Tamasauskas
Textiles, Foam, Plastic, Electronics, Motors (2004)
Tribot is an alien companion. With three equadistant legs
radiating from its center, and limited touch sensibility, the
robot attempts to blindly navigate through a given space. For
ArtBots, the artists will take Tribot on a walk through parts
of New York City and document the event. This is done in an attempt
to generate social interaction with the machine. During the exhibition,
Tribot will be displayed as an artifact, along with its garments
and the documentation, so the audience may examine the various
aspects of the project.
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Nicholas Stedman is a Canadian artist living in Toronto. Working
primarilly with electronics and sculptural materials he makes
physical objects that perform actions. His work has been shown
locally, nationally and internationally. He works at InterAccess
Electronic Media Arts Centre, facilitating exhibitions, workshops
and member participation. Nicholas graduated from Ryerson University
in 2001 with a B.F.A. in new media.
Rhya Tamasauskas is a Toronto based visual artist and writer.
Since completing her B.F.A from Ryerson University in image arts,
she spends most of her days knitting wonders out of words, stitching
street wear for robots and sewing all the many monsters and creatures
that fall out of her eyes, ears, mouth and nose. She is an active
member the independent writing collective Tuesday and a partner
in the soft sculpture company The Monster Factory and Farms.
http://nickstedman.banff.org/videos/tribot.mov
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Wildflower Meadow Glacier
James Powderly,Michelle Kempner, Tom Kennedy, Todd
Polenberg, Brendan Fitzgerald, Paul Bartlett
polycarbonate plastic, steel, aluminum, custom electronics
and mechanisms, motors and other actuators, solar panels, code
and flora (2004)
The Wildflower Meadow Glacier One (WMG1) is an autonomous
robot and sculpture that manifests the metaphor of a glacier.
It is named after the Wildflower Meadow in Central Park's North
Woods, where we propose to ultimately install the final generation
of this large-scale public sculpture. The robot, a series of
five translucent cubes, will move at an imperceptibly slow rate,
in a manner similar to an inchworm, and record carbon dioxide
levels in the local atmosphere. The WMG1 will then document this
environmental data by planting varying patterns and species of
flora in the abraided earth left in its wake.
This first prototype of the WMG is 50 inches in length and
over one foot tall. It will be designed to operate autonomously,
on solar power, for one month moving at a rate of 1.6 inches
per day. We intend the final iteration of the glacier to be over
10 feet tall, 40 feet long and built to last 100 years.
As an artistic piece, the WMG forces us to re-imagine, both
beautifully and tragically, our relationship with nature, technology
and time. The WMG's operational timescale forces a shift in our
perspective and focus. It allows us to see our relationship with
the natural world diachronically, beyond the scale of our individual
life, thus forcing us to become aware of our own mortality and
the mortality of the human race as a consequence of global warming.
The floral output left in the trail of the WMG suggests both
whimsy and loss, echoing a variation of the Catholic-Mestizos
tradition of Flores para los Muertos. The Wildflower Meadow Glacier
will be a testament to man's ability to make the impossible possible,
to harness both nature's metaphors and power. Yet, it is implicit
that the robot is dragging itself, painfully slowly, toward a
future that will not include humankind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Powderly is a roboticist and artist working in the field
of artificially intelligent art. James studied at New York University's
Tisch School of the Arts and the Courant Institute of Mathematical
Sciences, receiving his Master's Degree in digital arts from
the Interactive Telecommunications Program in 2002. Prior to
moving to NYC, he completed his undergraduate studies in music
composition and theory at the University of Tennessee. James
has had collaborations with artists and engineers exhibited at
the Whitney Museum, the MOMA Queens, PS1, and the Sculpture Center.
This work has been featured on NPR and the New York Times. He
is a member of Eyebeam's Creative Technology R&D Goup and
co-founder of the NYC chapter of the Robotics Society of America.
James frequently collaborates with his wife, artist/programmer
Michelle Kempner.
James is currently working in Technology Development at Honeybee
Robotics, an aerospace robotics company located in lower Manhattan.
His project contributions include work on the science team for
the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover's Rock Abrasion Tool and a collaboration
with Diller + Scofido on a robotic drill named "Mural",
featured in their mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum
of American Art.
Michelle Kempner is a software developer with experience in
object-oriented programming languages and relational database
design. Michelle received a Master's Degree in Interactive Telecommunications
from NYU where she focused on programming and physical computing.
Previous projects include real-time video effects rendering in
Java, musical MIDI gloves and a networked computer vision installation.
Currently, she is collaborating with her husband James Powderly
on everything they can think of.
Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge Honeybee Robotics,
Ltd. and Eyebeam's Creative Technology R&D group for design
and software consultation, as well as the use of lab facilities
and resources.
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elf
- electronic life forms
Pascal Glissmann, Martina Hoefflin
Prints, Weckglasses, small solar analog circuits (2004)
One part of the installation shows photographs documenting
a natural environment populated with small analog solar robots,
the so called uncommon life forms. The contrast of electronic
and nature seems to disappear and fade away. The unknown species
in our well known surrounding looks acceptable and even comfortable
to the observer.
The other part of the installation consists of Weck-glasses
as prisons of the uncommon life forms. This scenario reminds
of Childhood adventures, exploring and discovering the world
around us. The elfs still get their needed solar energy, but
seem to desperatly use their only communication chanel, chaotic
sounds and movements, to call the attention of the outside world.
elf _electronic life forms
_uncommon for having transistors, capacitors, resistors instead
of organs, DNA or a brain.
_uncommon for each one looking and acting different but being
the same species.
_uncommon for being art-ificial but appearing natural.
_life forms since they live while the sunlight is available
for them.
_life forms since they produce sounds and motion out of light
(some call this photosynthesis).
_life forms since they are analog and act unpredictable.
The entomological field study of this species - initially
called elf - focuses on observing behaviour, sounds and motion
in nature and in captivity.
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and some bacteria
use the energy from sunlight to produce sugar, which cellular
respiration converts into ATP, the "fuel" used by all
living things. The conversion of unusable sunlight energy into
usable chemical energy is well known. But the direct conversion
into movements and sounds is a new field in the artificial animal
research. Like a plants' leaf may be viewed as a solar collector
crammed full of photosynthetic cells some body parts of the elf
species have a light absorbing capacity. Other parts can collect
this energy up to the necessary amount that is needed to execute
a certain behaviour (movements, sounds, ...). For that reason
elfs are photosynthetic organisms with light dependent processes
(light reactions) balancing between autotrophic and non-autotrophic
life forms.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pascal Glissmann, born 1973 in Germany, studied Communication
Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf
focusing on photography, typography and interaction design. After
completing his MFA in audiovisual media at the Academy of Media
Arts Cologne, gaining work experience in New York City and working
as an Art Director in Germany he is now researching and teaching
at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.
Martina Höfflin, born 1971 in Kenzingen, Germany, studied
Computer Science at the Academy of Applied Sciences in Furtwangen
and the San Francisco State University focussing on interaction
design, usability and internet applications. After 2 years of
freelancing as a media designer for different companies and customers
in Berlin and Munich, she is now working in research at the Academy
of Media Arts in Cologne since 2002. Besides she is cofounder
of the Büro für Brauchbarkeit, a studio for media,
art and fashion in Cologne.
http://www.khm.de/mg/projekte/ulf
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Sustainable
David Birchfield, David Lorig, Kelly Phillips
gongs, a water tanks, water pumps, lights, gong resonating
mechanism (2004)
A soft murmuring chord and a shimmering play of light greet
a visitor as she enters the space of the installation. Seven
automated water gongs around the space resonante at fluctuating
pitches. As the gongs resonante, the surface of the water in
the tanks will ripple. A lamp at the bottom of each tank illuminates
this ripple pattern and projects it on the ceiling and walls
of the space. This ambient environment is in constant flux at
a slowly sliding pace. As the water levels in each tank rise
and fall, the pitch of the resonance will shift. As the solenoid
actuators alter their pulse rates, and as the illuminating lamps
dim and rise, the visual ripples and shadows will change intensity
and character.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Design and implementation of this work is executed by a collaborative
team of three musicians, artists, and fabricators.
http://ame2.asu.edu/faculty/dab/watergongs.php
Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge the generous
support of the Arts, Media and Engineering Program at Arizona
State University.
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Contact Info
For more information about ArtBots, please contact
Douglas Repetto:
email: douglas@artbots.org
For questions/comments on the ArtBots website, please
contact:
artbots@artbots.org
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