Robotic art
Encyclopedia
Robotic installation art unifies Installation art
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
and robotic technologies insofar as the works and installations often employ computers, sensors, actuators and programming which allow them to respond or evolve in relation to viewer interactions. In this kind of art and technology
Art and technology
Experiments in Art and Technology was a non-profit and tax-exempt organization established to develop collaborations between artists and engineers. The group operated by facilitating person-to-person contacts between artists and engineers, rather than defining a formal process for cooperation. E.A.T...
-based work the viewer is transformed from a passive viewer to an active participant. One significant way in which this work can differ from kinetic art
Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
is that it is usually non-programmatic in the sense that the future behavior of the sculpture or installation can be altered by input from either the artist or the participant.
History
The history and evolution of robotic art and theater is quite involved. Early progenitors start in Ancient China (Han Dynasty, c. third century B.C.), with the development of a mechanical orchestra, and other devices such as mechanical toys. These last included flying automatons, mechanized doves and fish, angels and dragons, and automated cup-bearers, all hydraulically actuated for the amusement of Emperors by anonymous engineer-craftspeople. Several names have come down to us, however. Mo Ti and the artificer Yen Chin are said to have created automated chariots. By the time of the Sui Dynasty (6'th Century A.D.), a compendium was written called the Shai Shih t'u Ching, or 'Book of Hydraulic Excellencies'. There are reports that the T'ang Dynasty saw Chinese engineers building mechanical birds, otters that swallowed fish, and monks begging girls to sing.Rome
In Ancient Rome in the time of Nero the great poet and novelist Petronius made a “doll that moved”, and around c. 85 A.D. there were the amazing writings and creations of Hero of Alexandria, who wrote "On Automatic Theaters, On Pneumatics, and on Mechanics", and is said to have built fully automated theatrical set-pieces illustrating the labors of Hercules among other wonders.Thirteenth century AD
In the 13th century AD Badi Al-Zaman'Isma'il Al-Razzaz Al-JazariAl-Jazari
Abū al-'Iz Ibn Ismā'īl ibn al-Razāz al-Jazarī was a Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, craftsman, artist, mathematician and astronomer from Al-Jazira, Mesopotamia, who lived during the Islamic Golden Age...
was a Muslim inventor who devoted himself to mechanical engineering. Like Hero, he experimented with water clock and other hydraulic mechanisms. Al-Jaziri’s life's work culminated in a book which he called “The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices,” completed in 1206 AD. This book is often known simply as “Automata.” In Europe in the 13th century Villard de Honnecourt is known to have built mechanical angels for the French court, and in the 15th century Johannes Muller built both a working mechanical Eagle and a Fly.
Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages in Europe, clockmakers built an astronomical Clock in PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. On the hour, a skeleton with an hourglass in his hand rings a bell, and then a Turk draws his sword. Finally a series of animatronic figures move across the top of the clock.
Examples
- Leonardo da VinciLeonardo da VinciLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
invented several theatrical automata including a lion which walked onstage and delivered flowers from its breast, and a soldier.
- A mechanical theater at the gardens of Hellbrun near Salzburg, Austria contained over 113 hydraulically operated figures.
- Magician Isaac FawkesIsaac FawkesIsaac Fawkes was an English conjurer and showman. The first record of Fawkes was an appearance by his son at Southwark Fair in 1722, but an advertisement of April of the same year boasted that he had performed for George II, so it is likely that he was well known in London before this time...
, in 1722, used a clock that "played a variety of tunes on the organ, flute and flangolet with birds whistling and singing." He also had a mechanism called the "Temple of the Arts," which featured mechanical musicians, ships and... ducks. Fawkes also created a robotic apple tree that would grow, bloom, and produce fruit before the very eyes of an unsuspecting audience. This tree was the inspiration for the orange tree illusion in the film, "The IllusionistThe IllusionistThe Illusionist is a 2006 period drama written and directed by Neil Burger and starring Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, and Paul Giamatti. Based loosely on Steven Millhauser's story "Eisenheim the Illusionist", The Illusionist tells the story of Eisenheim, a magician in turn-of-the-20th-century...
."
- Pierre Jaquet-DrozPierre Jaquet-DrozPierre Jaquet-Droz was a Swiss-born watchmaker of the late eighteenth century. He lived in Paris, London, and Geneva, where he designed and built animated dolls, or automata, to help his firm sell watches and mechanical birds....
was a SwissSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
watchmaker who made some of the most amazing and sophisticated automotas ever seen, including The Writer (made of 6000 pieces), The Musician (2500 pieces) and The Draughtsman (2000 pieces). These devices are mechanical analog computers and form an essential link in the evolutionary chain of the development of robotic culture. They are still to be seen in working condition at the art and history museum in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Automatic chess players, artists and other figures were made with increasing frequency in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Humanoid robots
As the industrial revolution grew a new sub-genre of literature addressing the anxieties of the age appeared. Many of these writings featured a mechanical humanoid as a central character. Some of these artificial men in literature included:- The Nightingale – Andersen
- Frankenstein – Shelley
- The Belltower – Melville
- The Artist of the Beautiful – Hawthorne
- Moxon’s Master – Bierce
- the 'Golem' of Jewish folklore.
- The Wizard of Oz – Baum
and in the early 20th century:
- R.U.R. – Capek
- Runaround – Asimov
and even later in the 20th century:
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Dick
Engineering
Advances in engineering created new possibilities. In 1893 Prof. George Moore created 'The Steam Man', a steam-powered robot in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
which reportedly pulled a wagon-load of musicians in a parade. Rumour has it that parts from this Steam Man appeared in junk shops around Manhattan a few years later.
The revolutionary work of Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
, is an example. In 1898 Tesla demonstrated a remote-controlled robotic submarine in Madison Square Garden. Tesla described this historic vehicle as having "a borrowed mind. When first shown... it created a sensation such as no other invention of mine has ever produced."
Robotics have now become a mode of expression for artists confronting fundamental issues and contradictions in our advanced industrial culture.
Performance Art
Edward Ihnatowicz
Edward Ihnatowicz was a cybernetic sculptor active in the late 1960s and early 1970s.His sculptures explored the interaction between his robotic works and the audience.....
, who created The Senster
Senster
The Sensterwas a work of robotic art created by Edward Ihnatowicz. It was commissioned by Philips to be exhibited in the Evoluon, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and was on display from 1970 to 1974, when it was dismantled....
(1969–71). It employed sound sensors and hydraulics, which reacted to visitors in the space. Shows of this sort are sometimes large and elaborate productions. The Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) created kinetic sculptures usually made from industrial junk. They were hallucinatory and fabulous machines which performed unpredictably until they inevitably met a tragic fate, which was often to self-destruct.
He constructed his 'Homage to New York' in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1960. This 23 feet (7 m) and 27 feet (8.2 m) mechanism performed, then self-destructed as planned in an epic and heroic manner.
Due in part to the many variables and complications associated with the production of performances of this kind, they have historically been just as likely to be "underground" affairs as officially sanctioned events. San Francisco's Survival Research Laboratories
Survival Research Laboratories
Survival Research Laboratories is a machine performance art group credited for pioneering the genre of large-scale machine performance. After about 30 years in San Francisco, California, SRL spent most of 2008 moving to Petaluma, California....
is considered to be the pioneer of the 'spectacle' form of underground robotic art.
David Karave's robotics and fire artwork, Home Automation, is an animatronic theatre performance, with themes of propaganda and peace. This robotic artwork was created over 3 years, by more than 30 artists in the USA and Canada. The project has toured across the United States, and was shown at the Tennessee Bonnaroo festival with A.S.S. The Art of Such N Such, to a crowd of approximately 80,000 giving the show perhaps the largest singular audience in the history of robotic art. In 'Home Automation' a family of lifesize aluminum animatronic crash test dummies musically self-destruct, as they watch color code threat alerts on their projected home TV. The robot family's heads finally ignite into circuit breaking flames.
Two San Francisco-based performance ensembles, Frank Garvey's Omnicircus
Omnicircus
OmniCircus Theatre was founded in 1988 by artist Frank Garvey. OmniCircus is a gallery and performance art space located in the heart of San Francisco’s SoMa district and home to Garvey’s performance ensemble, , as well a permanent installation of his films, paintings, sculptures, music, photos,...
and Chico MacMurtrie's Amorphic Robot Works, were among the first expressions of integrated robotic music-theatrical performance, with human actors, dancers and musicians joining the mechanical performers (Amorphic later moved to NYC).
The Robotic Ensemble of the OmniCircus is a robot red-light district, a life-sized troupe of mechanical beggars, hookers, junkies and street-preachers who appear in OmniCircus stage shows and movies and engage in cyborg guerilla theater on the city streets. The San Francisco Bay Area has been the home and/or origin of many other mechanical performance ensembles and artists, including Matt Heckert's Mechanical Sound Orchestra, Kal Spelletich's Seemen, Carl Pisaturo, and Alan Rath, making the SF Bay Area a nexus of robotic art.
Robotic art exhibitions
- Since 2002 ArtBotsArtBotsArtBots is an international robot talent show held in New York City and other cities. It is sponsored by a variety of arts organizations, produced by an army of volunteers, and is directed by dorkbot founder Douglas Repetto....
has put on robotic art exhibitions featuring the work of robotics artists from around the world. Participants in each show are selected from responses to an open call for works; works are selected to represent a broad and inclusive cross-section of the tremendous range of creative art and robotics activity.
Robotics artists
This is a list of contemporary robotics artists.- Maria Verstappen
- Morgan Rauscher
- Mark PaulineMark PaulineMark Pauline is an American performance artist and inventor, best known as founder and director of Survival Research Labs. He is a 1977 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida....
- Ken RinaldoKen RinaldoKen Rinaldo is an American artist and educator. He creates interactive art installations that explore the intersection between nature and technology...
- Dan Roe
- Kal Spelletich, founder of SEEMEN
- Stephan von Huene
- StelarcStelarcStelarc is a Cypriot-Australian performance artist whose works focuses heavily on extending the capabilities of the human body. As such, most of his pieces are centred around his concept that the human body is obsolete...
- Yves Amu Klein, Emotional Art & Living Sculpture
- Stephen Hamper, MA1
- Ximo Lizana Robotic & Holographic Artist. National Prize of Contemporary Art
- Zaven ParéZaven ParéZaven Paré is a French new media artist who was born in 1961. He met Piotr Kowalski and Nicolas Schöffer from 1981 to 1983, and exposed his first bionic structure the same year in the Modern Art Museum of Paris...
- Simon PennySimon PennySimon Graeme Penny is an Australian artist, theorist, curator and teacher in the field of Interactive Media Art.-Early life:...
- Christian Ristow, Robochrist IndustriesRobochrist IndustriesRobochrist Industries is a robotic performance art troupe most notably recognized for its performances in and around Los Angeles during the years 1997 - 2005. The performances feature large radio-controlled robots moving among and eventually destroying props and set-pieces intended to convey...
- Sabrina Raaf
- Bill Vorn
- Chico MacMurtrieChico MacMurtrieChico MacMurtrie was born in New Mexico in 1961. He has been awarded four grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for Interdisciplinary Artists. In 1990 he received the San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie Award....
- Garnet Hertz
- Frank Garvey & OmnicircusOmnicircusOmniCircus Theatre was founded in 1988 by artist Frank Garvey. OmniCircus is a gallery and performance art space located in the heart of San Francisco’s SoMa district and home to Garvey’s performance ensemble, , as well a permanent installation of his films, paintings, sculptures, music, photos,...
- Flaming Lotus Girls
- Amy Youngs
- Leonel MouraLeonel MouraLeonel Moura is a conceptual artist whose work shifted in the late 90’s from photo based work to Artificial Intelligence and Robotic art. Since then he has produced several Painting Robots and the Robotarium, a zoo for robots, the first of its kind in the world...
- Arthur Ganson
- Haakon Faste
- Carl Pisaturo
- Aaron Edsinger
- Jeff Weber
- Alan Rath
- Pindar Van Arman
- Martin SpanjaardAdelbrechtAdelbrecht was a speaking, interactive robot in the form of a ball, designed by Martin Spanjaard .A first, simple version of Adelbrecht was presented in 1985....
- David Karave
- Ken GoldbergKen GoldbergKenneth Y. Goldberg is a Professor of Industrial Engineering and OperationsResearch , with a joint appointment in Electrical Engineering and...
- Eric PaulosEric PaulosEric Paulos is an American computer scientist, artist, and inventor, best known for his early work on internet robotic teleoperation and is considered a founder of the field of Urban Computing. Dr...
- Douglas Repetto
External links
- Benjamin Grosser Interactive Robotic Painting Machine
- 2011 ICRA Workshop on Robots and Art
- ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show
- OmniCircus
- Robots in Art
- Wade Marynowsky robotic Art
- Eduardo Kac Robotic Art Chronology
- Yves Amu Klein Living Sculpture
- Leonel Moura Painting Robots
- Matthias Gommel, Martina Haitz, Jan Zappe robotlab.de
- David Karave Self Destructing Pyrotechnic Robotic Art
- robotlab
- Zanelle - A Painting Robot by Pindar Van Arman
- SEEMEN http://seemen.org/
- Jean Tinguely (http://www.tinguely.ch/en/index.html)
- The Flaming Lotus Girls http://www.flaminglotus.com
- Francis Simon - simonfrancis1@orange.fr - http://roboticart.mysite.orange.co.uk/
- Hexagram - Montreal, Qc, Canada Robot Love , Cameron Skene, Montreal Gazette, May 5 2007
- Haakon Faste (http://www.haakonfaste.com)
- Machine Dreams Story on robot artist Fernando Orellana
- Ximo Lizana, National Prize of contemporary Art.
- Francis Simon : http://paintwithrobots.fr.mu