Subject:
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NYTimes.com Article: Robots Find a Muse Other Than Mayhem
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Thu, 30 May 2002 15:58:10 GMT
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lugnet@jameswestNOSPAM.com
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This article from NYTimes.com
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Robots Find a Muse Other Than Mayhem
May 30, 2002
By DAVID F. GALLAGHER
TELEVISION shows in which homemade robots battle each other
to the death have been major hits. But Douglas Irving
Repetto, an artist who teaches at the Columbia University
Computer Music Center, wants people to know that robots can
do more than just wreak mechanical mayhem.
"There seemed to be so much attention to that kind of
thing," Mr. Repetto said. Robots have a creative side, and
to help them flaunt it he organized a robot talent show.
"ArtBots," held at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn on Saturday,
featured 10 robot-centric projects by artists, engineers
and tinkerers and attracted hundreds of spectators.
The show filled a warren of rooms with the whirr and whine
of tiny electric motors. On the floor of one room, three
robots made of Lego bricks topped with plastic dolls' heads
pulled Japanese ink brushes across a scroll of paper,
producing swirls of thick black strokes. When all three had
finished their maneuvers, onlookers applauded.
"We're no longer the artists - we're the attendants," said
Eva Sutton, a New York-based artist and programmer who
created the robots with Sarah Hart, director of a new-media
program at the Rhode Island School of Design. The robots,
named sumi-ebots after the sumi-e style of Japanese brush
painting, are given simple rules to follow, she said, but
each has its own individual style and never makes the same
painting twice.
The robots' paintings were distributed to spectators. In
general, the robot-builders in attendance seemed more
interested in the robots' creative processes than in the
final product, and nobody waited around for a robot to
knock out a masterpiece. Besides, tricky philosophical
questions raised by the concept of robot art - including
whether it is art at all - have yet to be resolved. Philip
Galanter, the associate director for arts technology at New
York University, who put together the show with Mr.
Repetto, speculated only half-jokingly: "If your bot dies,
does the value of its art go up?"
The show also left the definition of "robot" wide open.
Works like Gregory Shakar's "Patterns of Metric Amplitude,"
a pair of giant interactive metronomes, were basically
kinetic sculptures. Mr. Repetto said his main interest was
in machines that have a knack for improvisation, but his
instructions to potential entrants were simple: "If you
think it's a robot, and you think it's making art, then
submit it."
Most entries fell into the category that Mr. Galanter
called "punk-rock robotics," emphasizing cheap components
and a playful do-it-yourself approach.
Ranjit Bhatnagar said he had torn apart his stereo speakers
to build Sketching Device No. 1, which used patterns of
vibration to move pens across a sheet of paper. David
Webber's AO2000, which visitors picked as their favorite,
made chaotic music with a blender, an adding machine, two
laptop computers, an old television and some coffee cans,
among other things. Symet Studio, by Stefan Prosky, a
family of simple solar-powered robots that left trails of
dots as they hopped around, was voted best of show by the
robot-builders.
The fanciest hardware belonged to Roving Walter Walter,
built by two visiting Belgian artists calling themselves
mXHz.org (for "machine-centered humanz"). It darted around
the floor as if it were R2-D2, sampling sounds from the
room that were meant to inspire its own audio stream. On
Saturday it would emit only a low repetitive growl. But Guy
van Belle, one of its creators, refused to tinker with its
algorithms, saying the robot knew best.
"We have to allow our autonomous robots to make their own
decisions, whether the humans like it or not," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/30/technology/circuits/30ROBO.html?ex=1023774290&ei=1&en=8eedf7bb5fe8ec60
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