art – Robohub

When robots become art: Interview with Yi-Wei Keng

Yueh-Hsuan Weng — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 18:44:15 +0000

Hiroshi Ota and Minako Inoue with 2 Robovie R3 robots in Oriza Hirata’s “I, Worker”

How can robotics help to enhance the development of the modern arts? Japan’s famous playwright, stage director Oriza Hirata and leading roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro launched the “Robot Theater Project” at Osaka University to explore the boundary between human-robot interactions through robot theater. Their work includes renditions of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters”, Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, and their own play “I, Worker”. Their work has spread internationally to Paris, New York, Toronto and Taipei.

For this interview, we would like to invite their collaboration partner Yi-Wei Keng, director of Taipei Arts Festival, to share his insights on the intersection of robotics and the arts.

Interviewee: Mr. Yi-Wei Keng, Artistic Director of Taipei Arts Festival (TAF)

Interviewer: Dr. Yueh-Hsuan Weng, Co-founder of ROBOLAW.ASIA Initiative and Fellow at CLAST AI & Law Research Committee (Beijing) and Tech and Law Center (Milan)

Interviewer: Ms. Diane Chiang, Guest Editor at ROBOLAW.ASIA Initiative

WENG: Thank you for agreeing to an interview. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?

KENG: I have diverse backgrounds. I studied civic engineering in my first year at university and changed my focus to philosophy in my second year. After graduation and military service, I went to Prague to study non-verbal theater. I dedicated myself to disabled theater when I came back from Europe at the beginning of 2000s’. This multi-discipline experience helped me to think of arts in broader sense.

WENG: Can you introduce Taipei Arts Festival to our readers? What are the collaborations between Taipei Arts Festival and Robot Theatre project in recent years?

KENG: Taipei Arts Festival is the city’s festival, and was established in 1998. TAF gets its entire budget from the Taipei city government. I became the artistic director in 2012 and invited “Three Sisters, Android version” by Oriza Hirata and Hiroshi Ishiguro in 2013. Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro also visited TAF and gave public talks about his robotics work. Then in 2015 we invited their “La Metamorphose version Androide” to TAF.

WENG: What caused you to collaborate with Mr. Oriza Hirata? Did you face any challenges in implementing the piece into Taipei Arts Festival?

KENG: Well, it was really an accident. My wife read an article about the Robot Theatre Project in Monthly Art Magazine Bijutsu Techo. She told me about this and I did some research. I thought it was an interesting project, then I found Seinendan through my connections in Japan. Oriza Hirata gave a very positive response about our invitation. Everything went well during the festival, that is why we decided to invite Seinendan again in 2015.

WENG: Taiwan’s choreographer Yi Huang had used his KUKA robot companion to design his “Huang Yi & KUKA” robot choreography. Can you introduce more examples of robot choreography to us?

KENG: For example, French company Cie 111 made the “Sans Objet” in 2009, it was also a dance show with 2 dancers and an industrial robot, like Yi Huang’s KUKA project in 2013. French choreographer Blanca Li made the “Robot” in 2013 where the NAO Robot by Aldebaran Robotics to dance with real dancer.

WENG: In Japan, an art theater in Tokyo performed a theatrical rendition of Osamu Tezuka’s “Black Jack”. The character “Pinoko” was played by a robot created by Waseda University’s Takanishi Laboratory. The arms, legs, and body of the Takanishi Laboratory developed robot are detachable and equipped with 25 motors, so the robot can vividly resemble the Black Jack character. With your experience and expertise in performance art, what are your thoughts on this?

KENG: What surprises people most about robots or puppets is that we know they are objects but they act like they have soul inside. But if there were many robots in our life, then robots on stage would not be such a surprise. What matters is when the robot looks like a human being, then robot theater loses its meaning too because people can’t tell the difference from appearance. There are more and more animation films, but there is a psychological need to see real humans in films. That is what happens in animation film, we don’t want to see the animation, which shoots like the real movie, we want to experience the pleasure of difference and surprise.

CIANG: Is there a correlation between robotic theater and anthropology? If so, what is it? Can you share your insights from a puppetry aesthetics perspective?

KENG: As I say, if a robot looks like the real people on stage, then it loses its attraction for the audience. It is the same for puppet theater: the movement and design should remain dumpy and eccentric. In the future, androids in everyday life may confuse people if we can’t tell the difference between robots and human beings. We might kill someone which we declare as a robot, but in fact is a human being. Why is robot theater important? Because we could use theater to show the fictional situation which may happen in the future and discuss its meaning and possibility through story.

CIANG: In the 2016 Taipei Film Festival, there is a movie featuring a robot called “Sayonara”. This movie is an extension of Hirata and Ishiguro’s Robot Theater Project. They use an android as an actress in the movie. To human actors, what is the difference between 3D robotic theater and a 2D movie when they play with the android?

KENG: When you see the robot in a theater you confront the reality, and the statement from story becomes stronger than in the movie. There is a life event in theater but film is an illusion made by projecting lights on a screen.

CIANG: Can you tell us something about ethics debates in robot theater? Why do ethics matter to robot theater?

KENG: The main issue is the role of actors in theater. In 1908, theorist Gordon Craig declared that the Über-Marionette should replace the real actor in the future. But acting is not only imitation but also a creative process. Ethics about robot theater can help us to understand more about the essence of theater, robots and humanity.

CIANG: Do you think that it is possible to improve the performance of robots in society by borrowing experiences from performance theory?

KENG: If a robot wants to become human, they must look like a human and act like a human. So “act” has something to do with acting. According to the theory of mirror neuron, the audience can react with the acting from the stage, because their body acts the same way when similar situations happen, so the audience reacts. Acting technique divides from inside-out like Stanislavky system and outside-in like the Delsarte method. The performance theory of François Delsatre might help better than the inside-out technique since robots don’t act by feeling.

WENG: Researchers at the University of Oxford found that 47% of U.S. jobs are at risk of AI and automation in the next two decades. Do you agree that in the field of arts and drama, many future job opportunities will be replaced by robots? Or do you rather believe that new technology will create more opportunities for humans?

KENG: There are many puppet theaters in different cultures, and there exist theaters with real actors in these cultures too. There is no contradiction between having a robot actor and real actor. The emergence of robot actors could create a revolution in acting theory. The problem is not technology, but how we treat them.

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Art meets robotics in Patrick Tresset’s OPLINE Prize entry

Andra Keay — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 17:26:23 +0000

The OPLINE Prize is the first online contemporary art award, where the audience vote for the winner out of 10 nominated artists. The winning artist receives 4,000 Euros and exhibitions. The winner also gives away a work of art to a random voter. The OPLINE Prize process in itself reflects on innovative digital culture and the engagement of the broader community in art.

I was delighted to discover that Patrick Tresset, an artist I admire, was nominated for the award this year. His latest installations focus on the relations between humans and machines. Will robot culture emerge in the interactions? What are machine aesthetics? And where will people fit into an increasingly complex technological mix?

Tresset’s recent exhibition “5RNP Étude humaine #1” at the Montreal Biennale was a theatrical robotic installation in which humans become the actors. In a scenario similar to a live model drawing class, the visitor takes a seat, ready to be drawn by five robots. Placed in an ambivalent situation, the visitor is both at the mercy of the robots’ gaze and the object of artistic attention. Like a live model, the human loses its identity, becoming a passive object of study, while the robots take on the role of artistic creator Despite being immobile, the visitor is an integral part of the installation.

Here are the 10 artists selected for this year’s OPLINE Prize. Voting closes on October 30 so find your favorite and vote now. Or perhaps just enjoy these interesting viewpoints on the intersection of technology and culture.

JUDITH BAUDINET

Chosen by Christian GATTINONI

CLEA COUDSI & ERIC HERBIN

Chosen by Catherine IKAM

CAROLINE DELIEUTRAZ

Chosen by Dominique MOULON

HERVE LOUISE AND CHLOE MAILLET

Chosen by Geneviève Fraisse

ADRIEN M / CLAIRE B

Chosen by Alexia Guggemos

AMY ANTONIN-MENICHETTI

Chosen by Sandra HEGEDUS

NONOTAK

Chosen by Gilles ALVAREZ

PLUM NOURRY

Chosen by ORLAN

SMITH

Chosen by Alain FLEISCHER

PATRICK TRESSET

Chosen by Alain Thibault

ShanghAI Lectures: Louis-Philippe Demers “Embodiment and robotic arts”

Nathan Labhart — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:18:40 +0000

The Blind Robot by Louis-Philippe Demers is a reference to the works of Merleau-Ponty and his example of the body extension of the blind man’s cane, where the cane not only senses the world but also reveals the blind man as blind. Photo credit: Louis-Philippe Demers

Guest talk in the ShanghAI Lectures, 2010-12-16

Embodied agents have a material existence whilst audiences share this very same world and space. This lecture explores the far-reaching and often surprising implications of embodiment, both from the perspective of the audience and of the robotic agents in Robotic Arts, which empower intangible contributions from the cultural context, the suspension of disbelief and the attribution of intention towards any outside physical objects acting upon the world.

The ShanghAI Lectures are a videoconference-based lecture series on Embodied Intelligence, run and organized by Rolf Pfeifer (from 2009 till 2012), Fabio Bonsignorio (since 2013), and me with partners around the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_JSIqb_TAA

Louis-Philippe Demers makes large-scale installations and performances. His main areas of work are entertainment robotics and interaction design. Over the past two decades, he participated in more than seventy artistic and stage productions and has built more than 300 machines. His projects can be found in theatre, opera, subway stations, art museums, science museums, music events and trade shows.

Demers’ works have been featured at major venues such as Lille 2004, Expo 1992 and 2000, Sonambiente, ISEA, Siggraph and Sonar. He received three mentions at Ars Electronica, the Distinction of Prix Ars 96, the first prize of Vida 2.0, a mention for the Tiller Girls at Vida 12.0, the Interactive prize for Lightforms 98 and six prizes for Devolution including two Helpmann Awards, the Australian equivalent of the Broadway’s Tony.

Demers was Professor of Digital Media and Exhibit Design/Scenography at the Hochschule fuer Gestaltung, the academic institution affiliated to the world renowned Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM, Germany). Since he joined the Interaction and Entertainment Research Centre and the newly founded School of Art, Design and Media at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU, Singapore).

The ShanghAI Lectures have brought us a treasure trove of guest lectures by experts in robotics. You can find the whole series from 2012 here. Now, we’re bringing you the guest lectures you haven’t yet seen from previous years, starting with the first lectures from 2009 and releasing a new guest lecture every Thursday until all the series are complete. Enjoy!

ShanghAI Lectures: Adrianne Wortzel “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”

Nathan Labhart — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 05:00:48 +0000

Guest talk in the ShanghAI Lectures, 2009-12-17

This lecture discusses the relevance of embedding dramatic scenarios and expressive language into methodologies employed in the research and development of biochemical and/or electronic sentient beings. The author demonstrates how adding imaginative modalities to current practices can afford a profound and positive effect on outcomes.

Please note that due to some technical problems, some videos in the recording come without audio. We apologize for the inconvenience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75nkH37FCi8

Adrianne Wortzel explores a range of new technologies as web works, robotic installations and performance productions. Her Globe Theater Repertory Company of robots were featured in installations in Cooper Union’s “Technoseduction” exhibition, Creative Time’s “Art in the Anchorage”; Ars Electronic, “Fleshfactor” and Kunstpflug e.V., Berlin “Arreale99”. She wrote, produced and designed “Sayonara Diorama”, a performance production with robots, live performers and responsive remote performances via videoconferencing, via an Artist-in-Residence Grant at Lehman College Art Gallery in New York funded by the Electronic Media and Film Program of the New York State Council on the Arts.

She has organized and produced international performative webcasts, and was co-host and content provider for “Art Dirt” a weekly live video-streamed interview format webcast originating from New York. She is a recipient of a 2000-2001 National Science Foundation grant awarded for creating a robotic theater at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art where she is currently working on her project ELIZA REDUX, a series of webcast and videotaped psychoanalytic sessions between a human and a robot.

Curious & creative, with Rob Saunders

Podcast team — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:43:11 +0000

Link to audio file (36:25)

In today’s episode we speak with Rob Saunders about work done at the University of Sydney in computational creativity and curiosity.

Rob Saunders
Rob Saunders is Lecturer in Design Computing and Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney where he joined the Design Lab. In 1995 he gained a BSc in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh and in 2002 he was awarded a PhD from the University of Sydney for his work on Curious Design Agents and Artificial Creativity. From 2002 to 2006 he lived in London where he worked on a number of interdisciplinary projects with artists, designers, and scientists including biological simulations of stem cell systems, an intelligent logo design system and autonomous artworks that have been exhibited in galleries across the UK and the USA.

After his return to Sydney in 2006, Saunders focused his attention to exploring computational models of creativity. His research interest lies in understanding human creativity and producing tools that support it. His curious design assistants for example are interface agents that have been developed to support human creativity by filtering and exploring design spaces. Saunders also aims to build minimal and well rounded models of creativity at the individual, social and cultural level for autonomous systems that work independently from humans.

Curiosity is one of the driving forces behind creative activity. As such, Saunders creates curious agents that are computational models of self-motivated learning based on interest in novelty.

In this interview, Saunders tells us about his many projects in curious systems and his take on creativity.

Links: