Robotic art

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Robotic Art is a broad term that encompasses a variety of sub-types of art, all of which employ some form of robotic or automated technology.

Robotic installation art unifies Installation art 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-based work the viewer is transformed from a passive viewer to an active participant. Ken Rinaldo's Autopoiesis installation of 15 robotic arms is one such example. One significant way in which this work can differ from kinetic art 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.

1 History
2 Examples
3 Humanoid Robots
4 Engineering
5 Performance Art
6 Robotics Artists
7 External links

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Thirteenth Century A.D.

In the 13th century A.D. Badi Al-Zaman'Isma'il Al-Razzaz Al-Jazari 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.

[edit] Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages in Europe, clockmakers built an Astronomical Clock in Prague. 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.

[edit] Examples

Leonardo da Vinci 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 Fawkes, 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.

Jean-Pierre Droz was a Swiss 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.

[edit] Humanoid Robots

As the industrial revolution heavied and swelled its mighty chest a new sub-genre of literature with all of the anxieties of the age made its advent. These writings had as protagonist a mechanical humanoid. 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

[edit] Engineering

In the engineering realm things proceeded apace. In 1893 Prof. George Moore created 'The Steam Man', a steam-powered robot in New York City and reportedly had this behemoth pull 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 - carpe diem!

The revolutionary work of Nikolai Tesla, is a culmination of sorts. Tesla in 1898 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 so-called 'advanced' industrial culture.

[edit] Performance Art

German artist group robotlab works with industrial KUKA robots in public spaces. It explores the relationship between man and machine by means of installations and experformances. "juke bots" is an installation, in which two robot arms are creating sound by means of records.

Robotic performance art refers to the presentation of theatrical performances in which most, if not all, of the "action" is executed by robots rather than people. An early robotic artist was Edward Ihnatowicz, who created The Senster (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 made usually 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-foot high and 27-foot long 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 is considered to be the pioneer of the 'spectacle' form of underground robotic art.

David Karave's robotics and fire artwork Home Automation, is a strange spin of animatronic theatre, on the subject of propaganda and peace. The project 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, June 14-17th, 2007. 80,000+ spectators were in attendance. 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 performing ensembles, Frank Garvey's Omnicircus 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 mysterious cyborg guerilla theater on the city streets. The San Francisco Bay Area has been the home and/or origin for 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.