Robotarium SP
by Leonel Moura (Portugal, 2010)
Installed in the Jardim Central de Alverca, in Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal, the Robotarium is the world’s first zoo for robots. Based on the Portuguese creatures, but with distinct morphology and behavior, five small robots were constructed exclusively for the Emoção Art.ficial 5.0 – Autonomia Cibernética.
Artist Leonel Moura works in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics. He created the Robotarium in 2007, and in that same year opened the gallery LEONEL MOURA ARTe, in Lisbon, centered exclusively on exhibitions of works made by robots. See also RAC3 – Robotic Action Painter, an artist robot, by Moura.
MetaCampo
by SCIArts (Brazil, 2010)
Information about wind direction, captured by a wind sensor attached to the outside of the Itaú Cultural building, is sent to a computer which, in turn, controls a fan that blows on an artificial plantation – a plane formed by flexible shafts similar to a wheat field, present within the exhibition space.
An interdisciplinary team that develops its works based on the intersection between art, science and technology, SCIArts has a fixed core of members, who realize works with invited technicians, scientists, theoreticians and artists. Currently its members are Bruno Bastos, Fernando Fogliano, Iran Bento de Godói, Julia Blumenschein, Luiz Galhardo, Milton Sogabe, Renato Hildebrand and Rosangella Leote.
Ballet Digitallique
by Lali Krotoszynski (Brazil, 2010)
In this installation, the silhouette of the spectators is captured by a camera, transformed, and projected onto a wall. The shadow moves through virtual space according to physical and visual information decoded by a computer program, which activates parameters derived from the Laban System of human movement analysis.
Learn more about interactivity, a central concept to some breeders of the art technology
Lali Krotoszynski has worked as a performer and choreographer since 1981. She develops her work individually and in collaboration with visual artists, photographers, musicians, video artists, choreographers and dancers. Currently her research involves the search for narratives emerging in digital interfaces.
Caracolomobile [Snailmobile]
by Tania Fraga (Brazil, 2010)
An artificial organism, resembling a snail, is able to recognize different emotional human states, responding to them in an expressive way through sounds and movements. This work is inspired in affective computation, a field of research focused on the “psychic” interaction between humans and artificial systems.
Learn more about interactivity, a central concept to some breeders of the art technology.
Tania Fraga is an artist and architect. A doctor in communication and semiotics from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC/SP), she is currently a doctoral candidate at USP. She served as a professor with the Arts Institute of the Universidade de Brasília (UnB), where she works as an associate researcher. She has worked with interactive computational art since 1987, using virtual-reality technologies.
Projeto Amoreiras [The Mullberry Trees Project]
by Grupo Poéticas Digitais (Brazil, 2010)
Five real mulberry trees, arranged in front of the headquarters of Itaú Cultural, “learn” – by way of a device for measuring noise pollution – to vibrate in response to environmental sounds. This project is aimed at increasing the chances of the trees’ survival, now able to emit warnings in possible situations of risk.
Learn more about autonomy, a central concept to some breeders of the art technology.
Grupo Poéticas Digitais – which, for this project, relied on the participation of Gilbertto Prado, Agnus Valente, Andrei Tomaz, Claudio Bueno, Daniel Ferreira, Luciana Ohira, Lucila Meirelles, Mauricio Taveira, Nardo Germano, Sérgio Bonilha, Tania Fraga and Tatiana Travisani – was created in 2002 at the Department of Visual Arts of the Universidade de São Paulo (USP). The collective aims to generate a multidisciplinary nucleus, promoting the development of experimental projects and reflection on the impact of the new technologies on the visual arts.
Evolved Virtual Creatures
by Karl Sims (United States, 1994)
This video is the result of a research that simulated Darwinian evolution by way of hundreds of virtual creatures – which “live” within a CM-5, a supercomputer elaborated in the 1990s by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the process of the experiment, each of these creatures really evolved, learning to execute determined tasks – such as swimming in a simulated aquatic environment.
Artist, scientist and entrepreneur Karl Sims is the founder of Genarts, a North American company that creates special-effects software for the filmmaking industry. He studied computer graphics at MIT and graduated, from the same institute, in life sciences.
Prosthetic Head
by Stelarc (Australia, 2003)
A large-scale projection of the artist’s head converses, in English, with the public. The software that controls the dialog is based on the A.L.I.C.E. (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) mechanism, a famous conversing robot also known as Alicebot, or simply Alice. This work aims to demonstrate that, with the advent of new technologies, the difference between humans and machines is no longer a problem of identity, but of interface.
Learn more about interactivity, a central concept to some breeders of the art technology.
Stelarc is an artist interested in the evolutionary architecture of the body and in possible ways of redesigning the human, enhanced by implants and exoskeletons. Head of the Department of Performance Art at Brunel University, England, he is an invited senior researcher at the University of Western Sydney, Australia.
Hysterical Machines
by Bill Vorn (Canada, 2006)
Five arthropod robots make organic but twitchy movements: an unexpected behavior, since it is realized by machines which, supposedly, should be merely functional. This work aims to evoke the spectator’s empathy for the robotic entities, which in fact are more than a handful of metallic structures.
Learn more about interactivity, a central concept to some breeders of the art technology.
Bill Vorn has been dedicated to robotic art since 1992. A professor at Concordia University, Canada, where he teaches electronic art, he is in charge of the research laboratory for robotic art creation (Alab) at Hexagram Institute, also in Canada.
Bion
by Adam Brown and Andrew H. Fagg (United States, 2006)
A network of sensors is linked to about one thousand devices that sing like living beings. Each one of these “lifeforms,” called a “bion,” communicates with the others and reacts to the presence of the spectators. The installation’s title refers to a primordial biological energy unit, identified as “orgone” by scientist Wilhelm Reich.
Learn more about interactivity, a central concept to some breeders of the art technology.
Artist Adam Brown works on the border between science, technology and art. He is interested, more specifically, by the relations between humans and synthetic life forms. Andrew H. Fagg is a doctor of computer science and works as an associate professor of bioengineering at the University of Oklahoma, United States.
Silent Barrage
by SymbioticA (Australia - United States, 2008–2009)
Robots move vertically along various columns, leaving traces that are actually the representation of the firings of neurons cultivated in a glass recipient located thousands of kilometers away. Parallel to this, sensors located around the installation capture the movements of the public, which, in turn, also move the robots about.
The collective SymbioticA is made up of artists Guy Ben-Ary and Philip Gamblen, composer Brett Murray, engineers Peter Gee, Nathan Scott and Stephen Bobic, as well as Dr. Steve Potter, a neuroscientist with the laboratory of neuroengineering at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, United States. Installed at the School of Human Anatomy and Biology of the University of Western Australia, the group blends art with science, encouraging critical thinking on the ethical and cultural questions involved in the manipulation of life.
Autoportrait
by robotlab (Germany, 2002)
Using a pen, a robot makes human portraits, and then destroys the images – an act that questions, among other things, the universality of authorship and the anthropocentrism of artistic practice.
See also another artist-robot: RAC3 – Robotic Action Painter, by Leonel Moura.
robotlab is a group founded in 2000 by Matthias Gommel, Martina Haitz and Jan Zappe, artists interested in the experimental and artistic use of industrial robots – machines normally used in factories. This collective works in partnership with the Karlsruhe Art and Media Center (ZKM), in Germany.