[Synapse elist] Bioart + Robotics

[Vicki Sowry]

Hi all

Firstly, my apologies for jumping the gun!

And Jens, thank you for your thoughtful post.. your experiences curating and
mounting the sk-interfaces exhibition certainly highlight a lot of the
issues raised throughout the month.. In fact, I hope your comments generate
some responses  - there's no reason the discussion cannot continue alongside
other, forthcoming, topics..  So please, don't interpret my earlier email as
an edict to cease ongoing discussion forthwith!

And speaking of forthwith.... without further ado I would like to offer a
warm welcome to our first three guests for the robotics discussion, which
will concern robotics and artists' engagement with the field.  As well as
surveying contemporary projects, I am keen for the conversation to address
the ramifications of artists working alongside scientists on robotics, now
and into the future.

So, please, join me in welcoming:

KIRSTY BOYLE - an artist whose passion for robots has led her to
travel the world, working with like-minded puppeteers, animators and
roboticists. Her work examines robots as subjects of culture with
particular emphasis on how we experience and personalise our
interactions with them. She is currently artist in residence and guest
researcher at the AI Lab, University of Zurich, where she is working on
girlton, a robot combining artificial intelligence with traditional
automata. www.anat.org.au/blog/boyle/

PAUL BROWN - an artist and writer who has specialised in art, science
and technology since the late 1960s. His work has shown at the TATE,
Victoria & Albert and ICA in the UK; ARCO in Spain and the Venice
Biennale as well as being represented in public, corporate and private
collections internationally. He is currently a visiting professor at
the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, University of
Sussex, where he is working on a project to evolve robots that can
draw. www.paul-brown.com

LEONEL MOURA - an artist who works with robotics and artificial
intelligence in order to produce "Artificial Creativity". He created
his first swarm of autonomous painting robots - able to produce
original artworks based on emergent behaviour - in 2003. Since then he
has produced increasingly autonomous and sophisticated 'artbots',
including RAP (Robotic Action Painter, 2006) created for permanent
exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
www.leonelmoura.com/


Let the discussion begin!



Vicki