[Synapse elist] Robotics: welcome to new guests

[douglas repetto]

Dear list,


Thanks Vicki, for the invitation and introduction. And I apologize for 
my delayed entrance into the discussion.

As it happens this afternoon I will fly to Amsterdam to make an 
improvised collaborative robotic/organic installation with Belgian 
artist Angelo Vermeulen at the "Victorian Circus" 
(http://www.brakkegrond.nl). We'll find some way of combining a human 
system, a robotic system, and an organic system (probably maggot-based) 
into one large installation. Right now we're imagining it as a 
competition of some sort, human v. robot v. maggot. Silly, of course, 
and for me that's part of the point, that it's very easy (and I would 
say natural) to make category errors when dealing with questions of not 
only machine creativity but also non-human agency in general.

I'm also currently working on producing/curating the next ArtBots show: 
http://artbots.org

Our call for works is out, please help spread the word! We were very 
lucky to have Leonel Moura as a participant in our show in Harlem in 2004.


I'd like to drop two quick ideas into the discussion, then unfortunately 
I have to run for now.

* In the ArtBots calls for works we have always had the line:
"We have no fixed idea of what qualifies as robotic art; if you think 
it's a robot and you think it's art, we encourage you to submit your 
work." The goal is to be broad and inclusive, to engage with artists who 
may not be explicitly thinking about robotics as their medium, but who 
are none the less engaged in asking interesting questions about machines 
and creativity. It is easy when talking about art, and especially when 
talking about art and technology, to become mired in discussions of 
taxonomy, precedence, "first time ever in the history of the world" 
claims, and so on. I try to circumvent those discussions when possible, 
and instead focus on art-making of any sort as a normal activity, as a 
healthy part of regular life, as something that we can use to help think 
through our options as we navigate an ever more complex world. 
Inevitably we get comments in our comment box that say "piece xyz is NOT 
a robot!" or "piece abc is NOT art!". But we also get lots and lots of 
comments that say "I never knew such things existed!" and "This is what 
I want to do with my life!"


* Despite advocating inclusiveness and breadth, I'm quite skeptical of 
most claims that are made in the name of machine creativity (and 
bio-creativity as well). There's a tautology at the root of most machine 
creativity: we create systems that are supposed to "work", yet are also 
supposed to "evolve" or "surprise" us. But the way we know they're 
working is that they do what they're expected to do. If they don't do 
those things, then we have a bug in the program and we track it down and 
fix it. Or maybe we decide that the buggy behavior is kind of charming, 
so we leave it in. But now our new expectation is that it will behave in 
that buggy way. So this is for me a very low-level, practical question. 
You can write software that is supposed to display emergent behavior, or 
is supposed to evolve, or surprise you in some way. Yet you also expect 
that software to "work". I have seen and myself written many programs 
that do something very interesting, and then when I look closely at the 
code I realize that there was a flaw in the logic, a bug of some sort, 
corruption. I like when that happens, and it's exciting because you get 
something you didn't expect, but it seems to me to really highlight the 
tautological problem. If you write a program that's supposed to display 
emergent behavior and it doesn't then you keep tweaking the program 
until it does. Or perhaps you end up being happier with the "broken" 
program that does strange things. Either way is great, but for me 
there's a great leap to somehow calling the result of such a process an 
example of non-human creativity.

Simple physical mark-making systems are a similar example: it's not 
difficult to construct a device that will make interesting marks on a 
canvas. The marks it makes will be an expression of the way it's made, 
of the physical forces acting on it, of the speed at which the paint 
dries and the viscosity of the paint and the texture of the canvas and 
the inertia of the brush or paint can. A complex physical system can 
have a complex, and compelling output. Even an "emergent" output. And as 
humans we tend to, and I think, like to, ascribe intentionality to 
processes that create compelling outputs. But that says more about 
humans than it does about a contraption you've rigged up to spill paint 
on a canvas.

There's a sort of animism involved. And I'm not trying to say that I'm 
immune to that animism, just that I think that it's very interesting to 
recognized and acknowledge the animism, and to understand the claims 
we're making and our motivations in terms of it.

This is a simplistic statement of the problem/idea, but I thought I'd 
throw it into the mix.


And now it's off on the long journey to the airport!


best,
douglas




-- 
............................................... http://artbots.org
.....douglas.....irving........................ http://dorkbot.org
.......................... http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp
.......... repetto............. http://music.columbia.edu/organism
............................... http://music.columbia.edu/~douglas