[Synapse elist] elist Digest, Vol 4, Issue 2
Greg Hooper
gregstuarthooper at gmail.com
Fri Apr 4 09:17:48 CST 2008
Hi everyone, apologies if I am a little naive with respect to this
field, but I wish to learn more about it and hopefully participate in
the future. If art is going to have a distinctive meaning then there
must be some criterion for judging something as art as against not-art
(or a little bit art or slightly art or....). If machines make art
then who or what is going to make the art classification. If it is
people/humans who make that judgement then the human is not out of the
loop. If humans are excluded from making the art judgement then there
are no criteria from which to judge the actions or output of the
machines. All outputs may or may not be art from the robot's viewpoint
- our view is irrelevent. However, if the machines have some sort of
value system built in by which they judge whether an output is art,
then that is again letting in the human. The only way to remove the
human and allow the robot autonomy would be to give the robot some
sort of adaptive/ evolving value system. But we would be quite limited
in our ability to recognise the robot response as being 'satisfaction'
or 'self awareness' of their robotic output as art.
This is the general problem of recognition of 'alien intelligence'. If
something really is alien how close can we get to understanding it?
How do we make our understanding of 'the alien' closer than a
redescription of observable behaviour?
On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 7:18 AM, wade marynowsky <wadox at laudanum.net> wrote:
> Hello list
>
> I am interested in discussing the two points in inverted comers by
> Leonel and Paul
>
> taking the "human out of the loop". and art that can "make itself".
>
> to what extent has this ever happened? as it is always the creators
> rules within the system which governs the work
>
> maybe complex systems like CA etc can express this ..........
>
> my robotic art blog is available at
> http://marynowsky.wordpress.com/
>
> regards
> wade
>
>
>
> On 02/04/2008, at 1:30 PM, elist-request at synapse.net.au wrote:
>
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> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> > 1. Re: Bioart + Robotics (Paul Brown)
> > 2. Artificial Creativity (Leonel Moura)
> > 3. Re: Bioart + Robotics (kirsty boyle)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 12:49:39 +1000
> > From: Paul Brown <paul.brown.art.technology at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Synapse elist] Bioart + Robotics
> > To: elist at synapse.net.au
> > Message-ID: <80A95984-D619-45BA-B6E3-E678404C14C9 at gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
> >
> > Hi everyone - I first trained as a painter at art school in
> > Manchester, UK in the mid 1960's when I saw an exhibition at the ICA
> > in London that changed my life!. It was of course Cybernetic
> > Serendipity in 1968 and, from that moment on I was hooked. From 1974
> > my practice has been based almost exclusively in the computational
> > domain.
> >
> > Another major influence was an issue of Scientific American (October
> > 70) when Martin Gardner's Mathematical Recreations column featured
> > John Conway's cellular automaton - The Game of Life.
> >
> > I went back to university in the 1970's to learn about computers and
> > was lucky to get a place at the Slade School of Art, University
> > College London when it had the pioneering Experimental Dept. with
> > it's own minicomputer (a 32kb system that was larger than a fridge
> > and cost as much as a house). The Slade postgraduate school was
> > dominated by the Systems Group who were involved with ideas of art as
> > process and autonomy.
> >
> > Since then I have been developing ideas about art that can "make
> > itself". From the earliest days I included cellular automata in my
> > work.
> >
> > In 2000 I was artist-in-residence at the Centre for Computational
> > Neuroscience and Robotics (CCNR) at the University of Sussex (where I
> > now have a visiting position). More recently I have been working
> > together with colleague at the CCNR on a project that is attempting
> > to use evolutionary robotics to create robots that can draw.
> >
> > So, that's me! I'm looking forward to this discussion and would like
> > to thank Vicki for setting it up and inviting me.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > ====
> > Paul Brown - based in OZ Dec 07 - Apr 08
> > mailto:paul at paul-brown.com == http://www.paul-brown.com
> > OZ Landline +61 (0)7 5443 3491 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
> > OZ Mobile +61 (0)419 72 74 85 == Skype paul-g-brown
> > ====
> > Visiting Professor - Sussex University
> > http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
> > ====
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:17:05 +0100
> > From: Leonel Moura <leonel.moura at mail.telepac.pt>
> > Subject: [Synapse elist] Artificial Creativity
> > To: elist at synapse.net.au
> > Message-ID: <mailman.2.1207103402.6200.elist at synapse.net.au>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> > since I have started working with cellular automata, ant algorithms,
> > swarm intelligence
> > and later robotics my main purpose was to produce an Artificial
> > Creativity (AC)
> > in a similar sense as we talk about an Artificial Intelligence.
> > That is the capacity of a machine or a robot to generate an original
> > "aesthetical expression" with a minimum of human intervention.
> >
> > Robots are for that matter one of the best choices, as they evolve in
> > the physical world,
> > and, more important, they can gather directly from the environment
> > the data needed
> > to perform such a task. This ability helps to take the "human out of
> > the loop".
> > Critical condition if we want to speak about true AC or even true AI.
> >
> > In this perspective RAP (the Robotic Action Painter) is a good
> > example:
> > <http://www.leonelmoura.com/rap.html>http<http://
> > www.leonelmoura.com/rap.html>://www.leonelmoura.com/rap.html
> >
> >
> > Leonel
> > http://www.leonelmoura.com/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 3
> > Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 02:20:04 +0200
> > From: "kirsty boyle" <kirsty at karakuri.info>
> > Subject: Re: [Synapse elist] Bioart + Robotics
> > To: elist at synapse.net.au
> > Message-ID:
> > <da2393170804011720y52992335s767561160ae3cf08 at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >
> > Hi,
> > I originally trained as a puppeteer.. but always held down day jobs
> > working with technology. I spent 4 years working at telecom/telstra
> > automating and configuring telecommunication networks. I then worked
> > in animation and film. I studied electrical and mechanical
> > engineering (mechatronics/robotics), but found it quite hard and
> > depressing as the focus was on the automotive industry. For many
> > years I worked at the ABC in engineering, figuring it was a good place
> > to be to use my technological knowledge in a creative environment.
> >
> > In 2002 I had an opportunity to travel to Japan and study with Master
> > Tamaya SHOBEI, a Karakuri craftsman. Karakuri is a mechanical doll
> > making tradition which can be seen as the origin of the current day
> > robotics industry in Japan. I was motivated to meet him as I had
> > heard about the tradition but there was little written about it in
> > English. I have a website which is an attempt to document the craft -
> > http://www.karakuri.info.
> >
> > Whilst in Japan I also started studying with Professor Yoshikazu
> > SUEMATSU, who founded the Suematsu Robotics Laboratory at Nagoya
> > University. He is considered the world's foremost authority on
> > Karakuri, and was a pioneer of foveated robotic vision systems. He
> > was also a student of Masahiro MORI (more of which I will write about
> > below).
> >
> > I thought after initially spending time in Japan I would return and be
> > making my own mechanical dolls, but instead it has taken me on a
> > completely different path. I have continued studying the tradition
> > and documenting it so as to share the knowledge with people outside of
> > Japan. I currently have only a small amount of information up on my
> > website but it astounds me how much interest this has created. I
> > often get frustrated thinking about how just because something hasn't
> > been expressed in English it might not actually exist. Currently I am
> > Master SHOBEI's only student, which never ceases to amaze me.
> >
> > At the moment I am an artist in residence and visiting researcher at
> > the AI Lab, University of Zurich - http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/ailab/ I
> > was invited here by Professor Rolf Pfiefer, who featured my website in
> > the AI Lectures from Tokyo, considered the first global, fully
> > interactive, videoconferencing-based lecture series at the University
> > of Tokyo - http://tokyolectures.org/
> >
> > At the lab I am building an embodied robot inspired by Karakuri. I
> > have a blog about my ANAT supported residency here -
> > http://www.anat.org.au/blog/boyle/
> >
> > One topic I am hoping to raise for discussion is as artists, how we
> > can we shape the future aesthetic appearance/movement of robots? Or
> > how do we want our robots to look and act?
> >
> > For many years I have been studying the 'Uncanny Valley' theory
> > proposed by Masahiro MORI (original paper in English is here -
> > http://www.androidscience.com/theuncannyvalley/proceedings2005/
> > uncannyvalley.html)
> > I am keen for any comments relating to the Uncanny Valley as I am
> > preparing to speak on a panel themed around Virtual Humans at FMX next
> > month - http://www.fmx.de.
> >
> > And just out of interest - what is your favourite robot, and why?
> >
> > Many thanks,
> > Kirsty
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
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> >
> > End of elist Digest, Vol 4, Issue 2
> > ***********************************
>
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