This article discusses autonomous robots that create art. It describes two robotic artists, Max Chandler and Leonel Moura, who have created robots capable of painting autonomously. Chandler's robots paint using a top-down approach with his close involvement, while Moura's robots use a bottom-up swarm intelligence approach where the robots interact indirectly using chemical signals similar to ants. The article argues the art created by these robots is truly original and creative, as the robots incorporate new information through their interactions in a way similar to surrealist automatism art.
Artist…Scientist...Inventor…Mathematician…Engineer… these are a few professions that can describe Leonardo Da Vinci. A true polymath, Da Vinci was known to have an “unquenchable curiosity and a feverishly inventive imagination” (Kleiner, 1995)
While he was well renowned as a painter, creating famous works such as the Mona Lisa, Madonna on the Rocks, and the Last Supper, Leonardo was far more than just an artist; he was one of the finest scientific geniuses of his era. He believed that any good artist should also be a good scientist so as to have a better understanding of nature.
His technological ingenuity allowed him to conceptualize inventions such as a helicopter, a tank, calculators etc. Although DaVinci never published his work, he kept a detailed record of his findings in handwritten manuscript, of which roughly 4000 pages survived today.
In fact, one might suggest that Leonardo was more of an inventor than a painter, since most of his paintings were on commission, signifying that they might have been simply undertaken to provide financial support for his true passion: understanding nature.
Leonardo Da Vinci loved nature from a very early age. This was possibly because of his origins. His birthplace, the village of Vinci in Tuscany was located near mountains, trees and rivers, giving young Leonardo a perfect opportunity to explore his surroundings and interact with the wildlife. He was particularly fascinated with birds, stating one of his earliest memories to be watching a great hawk soaring across the skies. Da Vinci did not just wonder how birds flew, he undertook systematic studies birds in flight — then applied his studies to create an invention in the hopes that humans might fly as well.
In this original Digital Art and Philosophy class, we will become familiar with different forms of digital art and related philosophical issues. Digital art is anything related to computers and art such as using a computer to create art or an art display that is digitized. Philosophical aspects arise regarding art, identity, performance, interactivity, and the process of creation. Students may respond to the material in essay, performance, or digital art work (optional). Instructor: Melanie Swan. Syllabus: www.MelanieSwan.com/PCA
Natural Aesthetics:Digital Art and Philosophy in the Era of Technologized Bi...Melanie Swan
The arts and technology are coming together in exciting ways in contemporary society. New experimental media such as biology, data, and technology are leading artists, scientists, and other individuals to new realms of knowledge discovery and creative expression. Philosophy, concerned with aesthetics and epistemology (the study of knowledge), provides an interesting lens for understanding current activity in a range of contexts where art, technology, and biology are linked. These contexts include GenerativeArt, BioArt, Biomimicry, Synthetic Biology, and CrowdArt.
Digitization of the Automotive Industry: Connecting The New Mobility Value ChainAndreas Mai
The Internet of Everything is set to create $ 700 Billion benefits in personal transportation globally and will transform industries along the transportation value chain.
The race to win the future mobility business has begun. Will automakers win this race by digitizing their business with a new value chain ecosystem, or will “The Valley” win this race by transporting their virtual business models into the physical business of getting people to where they want, faster and at lower cost? This presentation will provide perspectives on some of the critical success factors and who controls them, at least for now…
Artist…Scientist...Inventor…Mathematician…Engineer… these are a few professions that can describe Leonardo Da Vinci. A true polymath, Da Vinci was known to have an “unquenchable curiosity and a feverishly inventive imagination” (Kleiner, 1995)
While he was well renowned as a painter, creating famous works such as the Mona Lisa, Madonna on the Rocks, and the Last Supper, Leonardo was far more than just an artist; he was one of the finest scientific geniuses of his era. He believed that any good artist should also be a good scientist so as to have a better understanding of nature.
His technological ingenuity allowed him to conceptualize inventions such as a helicopter, a tank, calculators etc. Although DaVinci never published his work, he kept a detailed record of his findings in handwritten manuscript, of which roughly 4000 pages survived today.
In fact, one might suggest that Leonardo was more of an inventor than a painter, since most of his paintings were on commission, signifying that they might have been simply undertaken to provide financial support for his true passion: understanding nature.
Leonardo Da Vinci loved nature from a very early age. This was possibly because of his origins. His birthplace, the village of Vinci in Tuscany was located near mountains, trees and rivers, giving young Leonardo a perfect opportunity to explore his surroundings and interact with the wildlife. He was particularly fascinated with birds, stating one of his earliest memories to be watching a great hawk soaring across the skies. Da Vinci did not just wonder how birds flew, he undertook systematic studies birds in flight — then applied his studies to create an invention in the hopes that humans might fly as well.
In this original Digital Art and Philosophy class, we will become familiar with different forms of digital art and related philosophical issues. Digital art is anything related to computers and art such as using a computer to create art or an art display that is digitized. Philosophical aspects arise regarding art, identity, performance, interactivity, and the process of creation. Students may respond to the material in essay, performance, or digital art work (optional). Instructor: Melanie Swan. Syllabus: www.MelanieSwan.com/PCA
Natural Aesthetics:Digital Art and Philosophy in the Era of Technologized Bi...Melanie Swan
The arts and technology are coming together in exciting ways in contemporary society. New experimental media such as biology, data, and technology are leading artists, scientists, and other individuals to new realms of knowledge discovery and creative expression. Philosophy, concerned with aesthetics and epistemology (the study of knowledge), provides an interesting lens for understanding current activity in a range of contexts where art, technology, and biology are linked. These contexts include GenerativeArt, BioArt, Biomimicry, Synthetic Biology, and CrowdArt.
Digitization of the Automotive Industry: Connecting The New Mobility Value ChainAndreas Mai
The Internet of Everything is set to create $ 700 Billion benefits in personal transportation globally and will transform industries along the transportation value chain.
The race to win the future mobility business has begun. Will automakers win this race by digitizing their business with a new value chain ecosystem, or will “The Valley” win this race by transporting their virtual business models into the physical business of getting people to where they want, faster and at lower cost? This presentation will provide perspectives on some of the critical success factors and who controls them, at least for now…
Artificial Intelligence Catalyzes a Revolution for 21st Century Human Creativ...ijtsrd
Art is arguably the most creative form of expression known to mankind. Artificial intelligence has advanced to occupy a position of paramount importance in Science, but seldom do we associate it with Human Creativity in general, and with Modern Art in particular. Creativity is one of the rudimentary constituents of the functioning of machines. By using algorithms, machines churn out representations of shapes, images and structures. Machines are perpetually expanding, redefining and reinventing creativity in their own right. This idea has triggered the birth of a new subfield in Artificial Intelligence known as Computational Creativity. This paper analyzes the diverse ways in which the integrated algorithms of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are cut for producing breakthroughs in the field of 21st Century Modern Arts. Avani Goenka "Artificial Intelligence Catalyzes a Revolution for 21st Century Human Creativity and Modern Art" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-6 | Issue-2 , February 2022, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd49150.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/49150/artificial-intelligence-catalyzes-a-revolution-for-21st-century-human-creativity-and-modern-art/avani-goenka
Arts and science are similar in that theyare expressions of .docxwraythallchan
Arts and science are similar in that they
are expressions of what it is to be human
in this world by Ariane Koek
Luc Lalande
Jun 26, 2017 · 6 min read
The following post is a copy/paste of an article by Ariane Koek that
deeply in9uenced my thinking of true art-science collaboration.
. . .
Original Source:
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Cern%3a+where+art+a
nd+science+collide/24678
By Ariane Koek.
Published online: 04 October 2011
Arts and science are similar in that they are
expressions of what it is to be human in this
world
https://medium.com/@luclalande?source=post_page-----b5624a2ffe2a----------------------
https://medium.com/@luclalande?source=post_page-----b5624a2ffe2a----------------------
https://medium.com/@luclalande/arts-and-science-are-similar-in-that-they-are-expressions-of-what-it-is-to-be-human-in-this-world-b5624a2ffe2a?source=post_page-----b5624a2ffe2a----------------------
https://twitter.com/beautyquark
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Cern%3a+where+art+and+science+collide/24678
Olafur Eliasson’s “Your Split Second House”, shown at the Venice Architecture
Biennale in 2010, took physics as its jumping-oK point
It is one of the fashionable arts movements of the moment. It is also
one of the most troubled because the aesthetic is unsubtle and still
evolving. With the seemingly giddy rise of the wonders of science in
our culture, epitomised by the boyish Brit physicist Brian Cox’s
blockbuster TV series, “Wonders of the Universe” on the BBC,
arts/science (sometimes called “sciart”) is gaining ascendancy in the
21st century as a movement of inXuence and power.
Almost every week, across the world, exhibitions are opening that are
billed as arts/science to cash in on this emerging trend, which is also
driven by new funding possibilities from science in the current arts
cash crisis.
But we are in the middle of a crisis of another kind — a reduction in
the wonder of creativity itself, and the question of who controls it and
how. Creativity, and where it comes from, is one of the last great
human frontiers, and one over which we have little control, cash crisis
or no cash crisis.
But there is a battle to do just that, and reduce creativity to a
systematic formula in our function-obsessed, input-output,
application-driven world. Artists are being driven to become
scienti]c, from the moment they ]ll in a funding application
predicting their ]nal production.
Let me explain. I work in arts/science myself. So, you could argue,
who I am to talk? After all, I have created an artists’ residency
programme at Cern, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory
and home to the large hadron collider. But it has at its heart the
wonder of the creative process. It is not a residency which is process-
driven or de]ned by an outcome; nor does it demand communication
about or homage to the science.
I have deliberately set it up to be a laboratory of the imagination,
where freeplay can hap.
Screens everywhere, on every desk and in every pocket, selfies on every social network and dataviz in every paper: we live in an era of image and transparency where everything can (must?) be seen and we experience life mainly through our sense of sight.
But what about the invisible side of things? As life is getting increasingly dematerialized, “invisible worlds” encompass a wide range of expressions and constitute a fascinating topic that inspires artists, designers and companies.
From Wi-Fi signals to brain waves and scientific experiments on "telepathically" transmitted messages, including emotion recognition applications, how is the invisible shaping our environment and generating new creative possibilities?
Scott McCloud's Big Triangle and New Media Compositionkabbie
PowerPoint Presentation from Computers and Writing 2005. Describes how McCloud's big triangle, a heuristic for understanding visual communication, can be used as a guide to composing and designing new media products.
...A SIMPLE CHART WE USE TO BRAINSTORM THE USE OF HUMAN/COMPUTER INTERFACES WITH THE PERFORMING BODY. THIS INVOLVES THE CONFLUENCE OF THE 'NOOSPHERE' WITH THE HUMAN BODY IN ART AND TECHNOLOGY....A DOSE OF HISTORY AND NARRATOLOGY.
ARE 494 Digital Ethnography Benjamin NewtonWallyOyen
Benjamin Newton's research presentation from Mary Stokrocki's 2015 Digital Ethnography Course. Research was conducted through an interview with Mary Stokrocki.
Artificial Intelligence Catalyzes a Revolution for 21st Century Human Creativ...ijtsrd
Art is arguably the most creative form of expression known to mankind. Artificial intelligence has advanced to occupy a position of paramount importance in Science, but seldom do we associate it with Human Creativity in general, and with Modern Art in particular. Creativity is one of the rudimentary constituents of the functioning of machines. By using algorithms, machines churn out representations of shapes, images and structures. Machines are perpetually expanding, redefining and reinventing creativity in their own right. This idea has triggered the birth of a new subfield in Artificial Intelligence known as Computational Creativity. This paper analyzes the diverse ways in which the integrated algorithms of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are cut for producing breakthroughs in the field of 21st Century Modern Arts. Avani Goenka "Artificial Intelligence Catalyzes a Revolution for 21st Century Human Creativity and Modern Art" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-6 | Issue-2 , February 2022, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd49150.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/49150/artificial-intelligence-catalyzes-a-revolution-for-21st-century-human-creativity-and-modern-art/avani-goenka
Arts and science are similar in that theyare expressions of .docxwraythallchan
Arts and science are similar in that they
are expressions of what it is to be human
in this world by Ariane Koek
Luc Lalande
Jun 26, 2017 · 6 min read
The following post is a copy/paste of an article by Ariane Koek that
deeply in9uenced my thinking of true art-science collaboration.
. . .
Original Source:
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Cern%3a+where+art+a
nd+science+collide/24678
By Ariane Koek.
Published online: 04 October 2011
Arts and science are similar in that they are
expressions of what it is to be human in this
world
https://medium.com/@luclalande?source=post_page-----b5624a2ffe2a----------------------
https://medium.com/@luclalande?source=post_page-----b5624a2ffe2a----------------------
https://medium.com/@luclalande/arts-and-science-are-similar-in-that-they-are-expressions-of-what-it-is-to-be-human-in-this-world-b5624a2ffe2a?source=post_page-----b5624a2ffe2a----------------------
https://twitter.com/beautyquark
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Cern%3a+where+art+and+science+collide/24678
Olafur Eliasson’s “Your Split Second House”, shown at the Venice Architecture
Biennale in 2010, took physics as its jumping-oK point
It is one of the fashionable arts movements of the moment. It is also
one of the most troubled because the aesthetic is unsubtle and still
evolving. With the seemingly giddy rise of the wonders of science in
our culture, epitomised by the boyish Brit physicist Brian Cox’s
blockbuster TV series, “Wonders of the Universe” on the BBC,
arts/science (sometimes called “sciart”) is gaining ascendancy in the
21st century as a movement of inXuence and power.
Almost every week, across the world, exhibitions are opening that are
billed as arts/science to cash in on this emerging trend, which is also
driven by new funding possibilities from science in the current arts
cash crisis.
But we are in the middle of a crisis of another kind — a reduction in
the wonder of creativity itself, and the question of who controls it and
how. Creativity, and where it comes from, is one of the last great
human frontiers, and one over which we have little control, cash crisis
or no cash crisis.
But there is a battle to do just that, and reduce creativity to a
systematic formula in our function-obsessed, input-output,
application-driven world. Artists are being driven to become
scienti]c, from the moment they ]ll in a funding application
predicting their ]nal production.
Let me explain. I work in arts/science myself. So, you could argue,
who I am to talk? After all, I have created an artists’ residency
programme at Cern, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory
and home to the large hadron collider. But it has at its heart the
wonder of the creative process. It is not a residency which is process-
driven or de]ned by an outcome; nor does it demand communication
about or homage to the science.
I have deliberately set it up to be a laboratory of the imagination,
where freeplay can hap.
Screens everywhere, on every desk and in every pocket, selfies on every social network and dataviz in every paper: we live in an era of image and transparency where everything can (must?) be seen and we experience life mainly through our sense of sight.
But what about the invisible side of things? As life is getting increasingly dematerialized, “invisible worlds” encompass a wide range of expressions and constitute a fascinating topic that inspires artists, designers and companies.
From Wi-Fi signals to brain waves and scientific experiments on "telepathically" transmitted messages, including emotion recognition applications, how is the invisible shaping our environment and generating new creative possibilities?
Scott McCloud's Big Triangle and New Media Compositionkabbie
PowerPoint Presentation from Computers and Writing 2005. Describes how McCloud's big triangle, a heuristic for understanding visual communication, can be used as a guide to composing and designing new media products.
...A SIMPLE CHART WE USE TO BRAINSTORM THE USE OF HUMAN/COMPUTER INTERFACES WITH THE PERFORMING BODY. THIS INVOLVES THE CONFLUENCE OF THE 'NOOSPHERE' WITH THE HUMAN BODY IN ART AND TECHNOLOGY....A DOSE OF HISTORY AND NARRATOLOGY.
ARE 494 Digital Ethnography Benjamin NewtonWallyOyen
Benjamin Newton's research presentation from Mary Stokrocki's 2015 Digital Ethnography Course. Research was conducted through an interview with Mary Stokrocki.
The recent winners of the Autodesk-sponsored Biomimicry Student Design Challenge come from the Art Institute of Isfahan in Iran. The team set out to use biomimicry-inspired design to reduce energy use in a building designed for Iran’s harsh desert climate. The result, inspired by the desert snail, is the Bio-Arch, which minimizes the surface area exposed to solar radiation with curved surfaces and shading. Learn more about their sustainable design approach and use of Autodesk® Ecotect® Analysis software to achieve winning results.
Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, advocacy tool and certification program that addresses development at all scales. It is comprised of seven performance areas: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity and Beauty. These are subdivided into a total of twenty Imperatives, each of which focuses on a specific sphere of influence.
The purpose of the Living Building Challenge is straightforward – it defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today and acts to diminish the gap between current limits and ideal solutions. Whether your project is a single building, a park, a college campus or even a complete neighborhood community, Living Building Challenge provides a framework for design, construction and the symbiotic relationship between people and all aspects of the built environment. Download the complete document to learn more.
A robotic system for interpreting images into painted artworkTev Tlov
We report on a robotic system that can physically produce paintings with a wide
range of artistic media such as acrylic paint on canvas. The system is composed of
an articulated painting arm and a machine-learning algorithm aimed at determining a
series of brushstrokes that will transfer a given electronic image onto canvas. An
artist controlling the system is able to influence the resulting art piece through choice
of various parameters, such as the palette, brush types and brushstroke parameters.
Alternatively, an artist is able to influence the outcome through varying the
algorithmic parameters and feedback of the learning algorithm itself. In these results,
a genetic algorithm used a painting simulation to optimize similarity between the
target and the source images.
Painterly interfaces for audiovisual performanceTev Tlov
This thesis presents a new computer interface metaphor for the
real-time and simultaneous performance of dynamic imagery and
sound. This metaphor is based on the idea of an inexhaustible,
infinitely variable, time-based, audiovisual “substance” which
can be gesturally created, deposited, manipulated and deleted
in a free-form, non-diagrammatic image space. The interface
metaphor is exemplified by five interactive audiovisual synthesis
systems whose visual and aural dimensions are deeply plastic,
commensurately malleable, and tightly connected by perceptuallymotivated mappings. The principles, patterns and challenges
which structured the design of these five software systems are
extracted and discussed, after which the expressive capacities of
the five systems are compared and evaluated.
Isaac Sukin
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ADUG slides
Filed Under: Atlanta, Drupal, Modules, Social NetworkingJul.14, 2010
Yesterday night I gave a presentation on Social Networking in Drupal at the Atlanta Drupal Users Group meetup. Grab the slides or watch the video!
The presentation was based on one I gave at DrupalCamp South Carolina/LinuxFest SouthEast.
Also check out the demo site! (Update: the demo site has been taken down.)
For new buildings, the recast fixes 2020 as the deadline for all new buildings to be
“nearly zero energy” (and even sooner for public buildings – by the end of 2018). For
existing buildings, Member States are required to draw up national plans to increase the
number of nearly zero energy buildings, though no specific targets have been set.
However, the Directive does not clearly define what a “nearly zero energy building” is,
either for new build or refurbishment of existing buildings. Article 2(1a) gives a purely
qualitative definition:
A “nearly zero energy building” is a building that has a very high energy
performance. The nearly zero or very low amount of energy required should be
covered to a very significant extent by energy from renewable sources, including
energy from renewable sources produced on-site or nearby.
A zero net energy building is one that is optimally
eicient and, over the course of a year, generates energy
onsite, using clean renewable resources, in a quantity
equal to or greater than the total amount of energy
consumed onsite. he Task Force recognizes, however,
that currently, and even by 2030, certain buildings
will not be able to meet the deinition of zero net
energy for technological or economic reasons (or both).
herefore, the Task Force strongly recommends that
where zero net energy is truly not feasible, buildings
in Massachusetts should reduce energy loads to the
minimum practical level, produce onsite as much of the
required energy as reasonable rom renewable resources,
and purchase locally generated renewable energy to
satisfy remaining needs.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish Caching
Autonomous robots that paint
1. JOURN AL
Artists Using Science and Technology
Volume 27 No. 6 May/June 2007
Autonomous Robots That Paint
Max Chandler’s Gimpy 2, and Leonel Moura’s robotic action painter
2. AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS THAT PAINT EDITORIAL YLEM FORUM
Loren Means
I think of robots as works of art, and roboticists as artists, cess with his robots, loading their paint containers and stopping YLEM Forum: Accessing Biology Through Art her life story? Our imaginations seek to see things in nature in
as well as philosophers. So I’m doubly delighted when I run the painting process to wait for paint to dry. Thurs., November 8th at 8 pm order to make sense of them. We see constellations in the stars
across roboticists who create robots that themselves create art. Canessa Gallery and faces in the clouds.
Since I do generative art in both the visual and the sound me- 708 Montgomery (upstairs)
The history of robotics has two phases: first, the top-down dia, and try to get similar results in both, I’ve been pondering San Francisco, CA What would we see in an electron microscope image if we
approach, and second, the bottom-up approach. The top-down the differences between the two. I think the fundamental differ- looked long enough?” Newdoll’s artwork has been featured
approach posited a robot that was intelligent enough to under- ence is that music is a strictly temporal art, like dance and the- As this program shows, biology in so many ways is a very on over 20 scientific journal covers in the last few years, and
stand most aspects of its environment before venturing into it. ater, in that no object is created. Visual art, on the other hand, visual subject. At the molecular level, this is more of a problem, her paintings have been shown in both science and art venues
The problem was, these robots were never intelligent enough, produces an object, and that object constancy is what makes it but one of the speakers, a graduate in microbiology, manages internationally. Newdoll earned a B.A. in microbiology from
and so took an inordinate time to plot each motion in the world. easier to generate complex forms. When you make music, you to convey its ideas using vivid paintings that use, on occasion, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and an M.S. in
The bottom-up approach, pioneered by Rodney Brooks, put have to keep remaking it from second to second, as it evapo- metaphors from mythology. Learn more about biology in an medical illustration from the University of California at San
many robots with low intelligence into the world with little rates, as Eric Dolphy put it, “into the air.” Whereas when you enjoyable way! Francisco. You can find her work on the web at http://www.
knowledge of their environment, and allowed them to learn make a mark on a surface, the mark remains, and accumulates brushwithscience.com and the Brush with Science Gallery,
how to function on their own. In the process, two concepts as more marks are added, until complexity is achieved. These PROGRAM 3515B Edison Way, Menlo Park, California (650) 440-0084.
helped the robots manifest themselves. One such concept was marks that remain can serve as the equivalent of pheromones,
swarm intelligence, the mimicking of natural entities such as which would suggest why robots paint, but, as far as I know, Donna Billick: Paintng murals with science students Shoshanah Dubiner’s biological images
birds, bees, and flies in the way they cooperate to achieve goals, don’t as yet make music. (Although Tim Blackwell has used “Neither science nor the arts can be complete without combining their We will project 11 paintings by Shoshanah Dubiner of Ash-
and stigmergy, the ability of these entities, such as ants, to swarm intelligence with improvising jazz musicians for several separate strengths” land, Oregon, who has been fascinated by biological forms for
communicate with each other without encountering each other years, creating computer graphic displays that the musicians –E. O. Wilson. many decades. After a recent Cell Biology class at Southern
directly, for instance by the planting of pheromones by one ant react to: http://www.timblackwell.com.) Oregon University, Shoshanah is turning her attention to the
to suggest corresponding behavior in other ants. Our Art/Science Fusion program is a new paradigm for teach- structures of the living cell, especially the cell membrane. She
Max Chandler is a long-time YLEM supporter who splits his ing and learning at the University of California Davis Campus. brings humans into all the landscapes, so viewers can imagine
Science fiction writers such as Olaf Stapeldon, Isaac Asimov, time between San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona. He has Through interactive, experiential-based lectures and studio themselves more fully in the world of nature. Thus in “Mem-
and Vernor Vinge have postulated group minds that, in coop- been interviewed in NewScientist, and has shown his robots at time, students learn scientific concepts and turn them into branes #1,” the cell at the top left is also the head of a woman;
erating with each other in adequate numbers, are able to create Siggraph and RoboNexus. Chandler studied math at MIT, Chi- works of art. The unity of knowledge is introduced, a sharing the cell membrane becomes the skin that encloses her body; the
an intelligence that rivals that of an individual human. Swarm nese at the Defense Language Institute, and did graduate study across borders and disciplines, where students see and feel art words issuing from her mouth take on a life of their own, as do
intelligence, on the other hand, creates an intelligence that work with the Taiwanese painter Chen Ting-shih. Chandler and science in the context of creating art, using the mediums of all the artifacts of human culture, including artists’ paintings.
mimics non-human intelligence, and the art created by these has worked in both hardware and software with ten patents in ceramic, paint and textiles. With this experience, students learn
swarm intelligences is itself a manifestation of forms that are milk cartons, gymnastic equipment, scanners, film recorders, to transform ideas into new concepts and insights with a greater
like those found in nature, rather than the kinds of mimetic art compiler techniques, CAD, and UI. He also programmed such appreciation for the natural world. Our presentation will show-
that human artists are taught to execute. In other words, the art products as Laplink, SimCity 3000, and The Sims. As he put it case the design, fabrication and installation of the large-scale
is non-objective, or “abstract,” and often of a very high order. in a recent interview: “I think reality has three components: the public art created in the Art/Science Fusion program. Nature’s
This intelligence is closer to “machine intelligence” than human material world, the natural laws that describe how that world Gallery is a new work displayed in the US Botanic Garden in
intelligence. behaves, and the mathematics at the foundation of those laws. Washington DC. “Tree of Life” is a 10’ high x 17’ wide ceramic
To me, art that considers each of these components is much mosaic mural at the UC Davis Arboretum. In addition, there
Although the creation of art by computers, using generative more realistic than paintings that look like photos.” will be images of painted murals and textiles.
techniques, has produced a formidable body of work, the
creation of art by autonomous robots is relatively new, prob- I found Leonel Moura on the Web at www.lxxl.pt while doing Donna Billick offers 32 years creating large-scale public art
ably because the bottom-up approach deprives robots of the research on swarm robotics. Moura is a Portugese conceptual in America, and around the world. I believe that the issue of
processing power that today’s computers make available for artist who has worked with AI and robotics since 2001. In collective meaning and purpose is essential and urgent, due to
artistic creation. Computer-art algorithms usually consist of 2003, he created his first swarm of ‘Painting Robots’ able to environmental pressures. Our social choices and outcomes are
two essential elements: a generative element that allows the produce original artworks based on emergent behavior. Since shaped by two systems, our nature or physical world and our
computer to create, and an aesthetic neural network that evalu- then he has produced several Artbots, each time more autono- cultural heritage or artifacts. I believe a parallel vision for a fu-
ates the quality of the work created and tells the computer what mous and sophisticated. RAP (Robotic Action Painter), 2006, ture that supports our mind, body and soul is created in fusion
to discard, and when a work of art is finished. created for a permanent exhibition at the American Museum concepts.
of Natural History in New York, is able to generate highly cre-
Leonel Moura’s swarm robots don’t have the individual pro- ative and original art works, to decide when the work is ready Julie Newdoll: Paintings based on microbiology
cessing power to manifest neural networks, and so he found and to sign it, which it does with a distinctive signature. In 2007 Emotions, states of being, and nature have been personified
it necessary to intervene and stop the swarm process when he he opened the Robotarium, the first zoo dedicated to robots and throughout time by many cultures in the form of various gods,
felt the work was completed. His new RAP robot, on the other artificial life, in Portugal. Moura has written several books on goddesses and mythical characters. Julie Newdoll asks the
hand, has more aesthetic ability, and can finish and even sign the subject, among which are Architopia, 2001, Man and Robots, questions, “Just as Bacchus can represent wine and the state
its own works. Max Chandler’s robots are closer to the RAP 2004, and Robotarium, 2007. of intoxication, Venus love, and Mars war, what would the
model, but Chandler is intimately involved in the painting pro- personality of a goddess for estrogen be like? What would be Membranes #1 by Shoshanah Dubiner, 2007, gouache on paper
2 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 3
3. ROBOT ART: A NEW KIND OF ART bots is “situatedness,” which means that the robot’s via bottom-up procedures. Pheromone expression is with intense shapes of color. In other words, initial
Leonel Moura behavior refers directly to the parameters sensed in dynamic, making use of increments and decrements, randomness generates “order.” The process is emer-
http://www.leonelmoura.com the world, rather than using inner representations. positive and negative feedbacks. Messages are ampli- gent and based on the properties of stigmergy.
Linked to this concept is the “embodiment” feature, fied when a pheromone is reinforced,
which corresponds to the fact that each “robot is a and lose “meaning” when a breeze dis- Machine creativity
Mankind has been intrigued by the possibility of physical body and experiences the world directly perses it. It is also an indirect form of
building artificial creatures. For the ancient Greeks through the influence of the world in that body”. communication, coined stigmergy by The artistic product of these robots is
this possibility was provided by techné, the procedure Grassé [6], from the Greek stigma/sign entirely original. In the same way that
that Aristotle conceived to create what nature finds The idea of collective robotics appeared in the 1990’s and ergon/action. Between the indi- somebody who writes a book cannot
impossible to achieve. Hence, under this view, techné from the convergence of the above described Brooks’ vidual who places the message and the be considered as a mere instrument
sets itself up between nature and humanity as a cre- architecture with a variety of bio-inspired algorithms, one who is stimulated by it, there is no of his primary school teacher, robots
ative mediation. focused on new programming tools for solving dis- proximity or direct relation. cannot be seen as simple instruments
tributed problems. These bio-inspired algorithms of the artist that conceived and pro-
This was the path taken by Norbert Wiener as he stemmed from the work of Christopher Langton, Following these principles, I have re- grammed them. There is an effective
opened up the cybernetic perspective, viewed who launched a new avenue of research in AI placed pheromone by color in my first incorporation of new and non prede-
as the unified study of organisms and machines denoted Artificial Life that “allows us to ant-robots (2001). The marks left by ArtSBot 020404 termined information in the process.
[1]. One line of development linked to this break our accidental limitations to car- one robot triggers a pictorial action in And that cannot be called anything but
approach gave rise to the familiar human- bon-based life to explore non-biological other robots. Through this apparent random mecha- creativity. It is true that consciousness is lacking in
oid robot, inspired by the von Neuman- forms of life” [4]. nism abstract paintings are generated, which reveal this creativity. But if we look at the history of modern
nian self-replicating automata and well-defined shapes and patterns. These robots cre- art, it is obvious that, for example, Surrealism tried to
based on the top-down attitude of The well-known collective behavior of ate abstract paintings that seem at first sight just ran- produce art works exactly in these same terms. The
the earliest Artificial Intelligence [2]. ants, bees and other eusocial insects pro- dom doodles, but after some reflexive observation, “pure psychic automatism,” the quintessential defini-
A much more interesting trend, also vided the paradigm for the swarm intel- color clusters and patterns become patent. Through tion of the movement itself, appeared as a technique
stemming from the seminal work of ligence approach of aLife. This bottom-up the recognition of the color marks left by a robot, the that was spontaneous, non-conscious and without any
Wiener but intended to “take the hu- Ant-like robot from the ArtSBot course is based on the assumption that others react to it, reinforcing certain color spots. The aesthetic or moral intention. In the first Surrealist Man-
man factor out of the loop,” emerged in project systems composed of a group of simple process is thus everything but arbitrary. As far as I ifesto, André Breton (1924) defined the concept in this
the mid-1940’s with William Grey Wal- agents can give rise to complex behavior, know, ArtSBot (Art Swarm Robots) [7] was the first way: “Pure psychic automatism by which it is intend-
ter, who proposed turtle-like robots that exhibit com- which depends only on the interaction between those art project to use emergent organization for devel- ed to express, either verbally or in writing, the true
plex social behavior. This was the starting point for a agents and the environment. Such an interaction may oping robot creativity. Every function of thought. Thought
new behavior-based robotics, abolishing the need for occur when the environment itself is the communica- previous experiment focused dictated in the absence of all
cognition as mediation between perception and plans tion medium and some form of decentralized self-or- exclusively on randomness or control exerted by reason, and
for action. ganized pattern emerges without being planned by sometimes on target strategies outside all aesthetic or moral
any exterior agency. leading the machines to fulfill a preoccupations.” [8]. In the
This line of research was pursued in the 1980’s by pre-determined program creat- field of the visual arts, Pollock
Rodney Brooks [3], who began building six legged Stigmergy ed by the human artist. On the better fulfills this intention by
insect-like robots at MIT. This new contrary, ArtSBot was meant splashing paint onto the can-
generation of robots was based on Based on ants and other social insect’s to put into practice the utmost vas with the purpose of repre-
ArtSBot 280404
Brooks’ “Subsumption Architecture,” studies [5], I have tried to reproduce possible machine autonomy, senting nothing but the action
which describes the agent as com- artificially a similar emergent behavior aimed at producing original itself. This was coined Action
posed of functionality distinct control in a robot swarm. These insects com- paintings. In operational terms, ArtSBot consists of a Painting. Perhaps, because of that, the first paintings
levels under a layered approach. The municate among themselves through series of small “turtle” type robots, equipped with two from my robots are, aesthetically, similar to those of
addition of new layers doesn’t imply chemical messages, the pheromones, felt pens and a pair of RGB sensors pointing to the Pollock or André Masson, another important automa-
changes in the already existing layers. with which they produce certain pat- painting plan. With these “eyes” the robots seek color tism-based painter. In his surrealist period, Masson
The aforementioned control levels A swarm of ant-like robots at work terns of collective behavior, like fol- (chromotaxis), determine if it is hot or cold, choose tried frequently to prompt a low conscious state by
then act in the environment without low a trail, clean up, repair and build the corresponding pen and strengthen it by a constant going hungry, not sleeping, or taking drugs, so that
supervision by a centralized control or action plan- nests, defense and attack or territory conquest. De- or variable trace. To begin the process, when the can- he could release himself from any rational control and
ning centre. Also, no shared representation or any spite pheromones not being the exclusive way of com- vas is still blank, the robots leave here and there a therefore let emerge what at the time, in the path of
low bandwidth communication system is needed. munication among these insects — the touch of anten- small spot of color randomly. Based on these simple Freud, was called the subconscious. The absence of
nas in ants or the dance in bees are equally important rules, unique paintings are produced: from a random conscious, external control or pre-determination al-
The most important concept in Brooks´ reactive ro- — pheromonal language produces complex cognition background stands out a well defined composition low these painting robots to engender creativity in its
4 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 5
4. pure state, without any representational, aesthetic or onboard chip, to which the program that contains the ties. It decides what to do and when to do it. It finishes we humans are for the time being the only pensive ob-
moral intention. basic rules is uploaded through a PC serial interface. the process using its particular sense of rightness. servers, the relation between machine art and human
aesthetic principles is here the central issue. Many
RAP (Robotic Action Painter), created in 2006 for The algorithm that underlies the program uploaded Although the human contribution in building the people like the robot paintings, probably because we
the Museum of Natural History in New York, is an into RAP’s microcontroller induces basically two machine and feeding it with some basic rules is still seem to gladly embrace fractal and chaotic structures.
individualist artist and not a swarm, but makes use kinds of behavior: the random behavior that initial- significant, the essential aspects But, more than shapes and colors,
of the same composition methods based on stigmer- izes the process by activating a pen, based on a small of RAP’s creativity stem from the what some of us really appreci-
gy and emergence. This robot is additionally able to probability, whenever the color sensors read white; information that the robot gathers ate in this idea and its associated
determine, by its own means, the moment in which and the positive feedback behavior that reinforces by its own means from the environ- process is the fact that it questions
the painting is finished. Previous versions the color detected by the sensors, activat- ment. In this sense RAP’s art must some of our strongest cultural con-
didn’t have this capacity, being conditioned ing the matching color pen. These two dis- be seen as an original creation in- victions. Art was supposed to be
by battery discharge or my will to stop the tinct behaviors are described as modes: the dependent of the human artist that an exclusive matter of mankind. In
process. RAP’s decision is taken based on Random Mode and the Color Mode. In was at the origin of the process. this sense, the robot paintings are
the information that it gathers directly from the random mode RAP searches for color a provocative conceptual art that
the painting, which produces a consider- (chromotaxis). If a sufficient amount is not A new kind of art problematizes the boundaries of
able variation of time and form, since RAP found (threshold) RAP activates here and art as we know it.
can decide that the work is complete after a there, randomly, a pen stroke choosing also My painting robots were created to
relatively short while (entailing accordingly randomly the color and the line configura- paint. Not my paintings but their References
a low pictorial expression) or can extend tion. The shape, orientation and extent of own paintings. The essence of their RAP 180906
the picture construction for a quite long pe- ArtSBot 010304 these initial lines are determined by the ro- creations stem from the machines’ [1] Wiener, N. (1948) Cybernetics; or the Control and
riod, making it much more dense and com- bot based on a random seed acquired from own interpretation of the world and not from its hu- Communication in the Animal and the Machine, MIT
plex. The “secret” of this behavior is in the significant its relative position in the space. This is done with the man description. No previous plan, fitness, aestheti- Press.
change of the sensors, which passed from two to nine data retrieved by the onboard compass. In this way cal taste or artistic model is induced. These robots are [2] von Neumann (1966) Theory of self-reproducing au-
“eyes,” allowing now the reading of local patterns, in RAP’s random generator can be described as real ran- machines dedicated to their art. tomata, ed. By A.W. Burks, University of Illinois.
addition to color spots. RAP is also my first robot to dom and not pseudorandom. [3] Brooks, R., (1991) Intelligence without Reason, Proc.
sign its works. Such an endeavor addresses some of the most critical 12th IJCAI, Ed. Morgan Kauffmann, San Mateo and
When a certain amount of color is detected the robot ideas on art, robotics and artificial intelligence. Today Brooks, R., (2002) Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will
ISU, the poet robot also created in 2006, has the abil- stops the random behavior and changes to color mode. we understand intelligence as a basic feedback mech- Change Us, Pantheon Books.
ity to write letters and words producing poems and In this phase RAP only reacts to the spots where a anism. If a system, any system, is able to respond to [4] Langton, C. (1987) Proceedings of Artificial Life, Ad-
emergent compositions based on the letter, quite simi- certain amount of color is found, reinforcing it with a certain stimulus in a way that it changes itself or its ison-Wesley.
larly to the Lettrism style, an artistic the same tone. environment, we can say that some sort of intelligence [5] Wilson, Edward O. (2006) Nature Revealed, Selected
movement that followed Surrealism. is present. ‘Sheer’ intelligence is therefore something Writings 1949-2006, The Johns Hopkins University
After a while a discrete pattern that doesn’t need to refer to any kind of purpose, tar- Press, Baltimore.
These references to 20th century emerges, where from a general ran- get or quantification. It may plainly be an interactive [6] Grassé, P. P. (1959) La réconstruction du nid et les
art movements do not seek any kind dom background a well-defined mechanism of any kind, with no other objective than coordinations inter-individuelles chez bellicositermes nata-
of historical legitimacy, but are in- composition can be recognized. to process information and to react in accordance to lienses et cubitermes sp. La théorie de la stigmergie: Essai
tended simply to show how certain available output capabilities. d’interpretation des termites constructeurs, Insectes So-
morphogenesis processes produce In order to determine when the ciaux, 6, pp. 41-48.
similar results in human as well as painting is finished, RAP makes Hence and although my starting point was bioinspira- [7] Moura, L. and Pereira, H.G. (2004) Man and ro-
non-human artists. Demonstrating, RAP 230807 use of a grid of 3x3 RGB sensors. tion, in particular modeling social insects’ emergent bots: Symbiotic Art, Institut d’Art Contemporain, Vil-
in the path of Rodney Brooks, how If a certain pattern is found, the robot “considers” the behavior, the idea was to construct machines able to leurbanne.
human nature can be seen to possess the essential work to be done, moves to the down right corner and generate a new kind of art with a minimum of fitness [8] Breton, André (1969) Manifestoes of Surrealism,
characteristics of a machine. signs. constraints, optimization parameters or real life sim- University of Michigan Press.
ulation. It is the simple mechanism of feedback and
RAP’s behavior RAP creates artworks based on its own assessment of stigmergy that is at work here.
the world. At any given moment the robot “knows”
RAP is equipped with a grid of 3x3 color detection its situation and acts accordingly. It scans constantly These artistic robots are singular beings, with a par-
sensors, eight obstacle avoidance sensors, a compass, the canvas for data retrieving. It uses its relative posi- ticular form of intelligence and a kind of creativity of
a microcontroller and a set of actuators for locomo- tion in the space as a real random generator. It builds their own. They do art as other species build nests,
tion and pen manipulation. The microcontroller is an gradually a composition based on emergent proper- change habitats or create social affiliations. But since
6 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 7
5. CHANCE IN ROBOTIC PAINTING I make autonomous mobile robots that are small I wish to make art that reflects our common lives. Two Ken Goldberg, a prominent artist in the Bay Area, of-
Max Chandler enough to walk around the canvas using paint brush- aspects of 21st century life are inescapable. First is the ten uses robots in collaborative social environments
http://www.maxchandler.com es to make marks. The robots have a small computer continuing discoveries and refinement of knowledge where people all over the globe can direct these robots
on board and sensors that can see the surface of the through science. I think the contempo- in various tasks. One of his best known
canvas and the marks it has already made. I use these rary disrespect and distrust of science works was a garden tending by a robot
“The original movement, the agent, is a point that sets robots a as a tool for painting — as a super brush that may be temporarily fashionable, but is that was controlled by users through
itself in motion (genesis of form). A line comes into can make marks that humans cannot make alone. For certainly eternally foolish. Second, most the Internet.
being. It goes for a walk.” instance, the robots can stay much closer to the ac- of us have become personally engaged
–Paul Klee tual lines of living growing things than we can with with technology. Technology is no lon- Artists like these are using robots as part
hand eye coordination. They are also capable of truly ger limited to impacting our work lives, of a larger vision. The robot is a tool or
Paul Klee wrote a short text he titled “Taking a Line random behavior that brings them closer to natural smart devices have a role in our personal a component of the work rather than a
for a Walk.” To give this idea a 21st century twist, variation. lives as well. Who would claim their daily substitute for the artist. This is much
lives are not changed by one or more of closer to the actual use and capabilities
the following devices: cell phone, TIVO, of robots than earlier approaches.
Blackberry, Notebook Computer, In-
tenet Search Engine, eMail Servier,...? Great advances have been made in re-
Cell phones are a constant companion of cent years in thinking about small ro-
many people today. bots. Through the work of Rodney
Brooks, Mark Tilden, and many others,
These are all smart devices that depend we now realize that simple robots, man-
upon small to large computers that are aging simple behaviors, are often much
part of their make up. These devices in- more successful than robots that try to
volve a combination of mechanics, elec- be substitute humans or pursue human-
tronics, controllers, and programming. like solutions.
Using a similar tool to make art reflects who
we are and our lives today. I use simple, very Most people realize that painting with robots
focused, small robots as a tool to integrate both involves calculations — many calculations.
aspects into an art that is science informed and To just move around an autonomous mobile
engaged with technology in obvious and not robot uses calculations for motor control, po-
so obvious ways. I have seen many art projects sition deduction and so on. Also, mathematics
that use similar devices. provides a rich palette of shape description
functions. I choose from algorithms that the
ELF is an art team from Germany that makes shapes, lines and patterns in growth of living
small insect-like robots that they display in organisms. There are many texts that explain
jars. The robots chirp, kick against the jars and the mathematics that explain natural shapes
struggle to climb out. It is an interest- and growth patterns. Here are a few:
ing display that takes on a special slant
when you see their film. The film shows “The Self Made Tapestry” and “Criti-
these robots “living” in natural settings cal Mass” by Philip Ball
— trees, grass, beaches, etc. — then peo- “The Algorithmic Beauty of Sea Shells”
ple come along, collect them and place by Meinhardt, et al
them into the jars. Because the jars are “The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants” by
European, American viewers may not Prusinkiewicz and Lindenmayer
get it right away. If they were in the “On Growth and Form” by D’Arcy
same mason jars they we used to capture Mark variation due to COGS Thompson
fireflies or other insects as kids then our “A New Kind of Science” by Stephen
experience would be like the European viewer. Many Wolfram
of us have treated living creatures the way these ro-
Fragments of a logarithmic spiral bots have been treated.
Article continued on the next page
8 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 9
6. My cacti series of paintings use fragments of logarith- the sun and the plant varies. Some petals are slightly teresis, etc. I can add or subtract a random amount to Most robotic mark makers are plotter-like, so I choose
mic spirals for edges and lines and cellular automata shorter, some twist, some turn down, and on and on. these profiles to produce smoothly varying behaviors ballpoint pens or markers that produce the same mark
rules for shape selection and placement. for the robot during the course of making an image. regardless of the speed or direction of the robot. Be
Robotic devices can use several tactics to obtain this
The prickly pear cactus family (Opuntia) is a group natural variation.
of plants whose growth is amazingly like cellular au-
tomata. Its pads are like cells in that they are mostly Most of my robots are walking robots, which have
alike and their number, position and type depend center of gravity shifting (COGS) as they walk. Of
upon the number, position and type of their neigh- course, anything that walks has COGS, humans in-
bors. Each pad uniquely defines the cactus. You can cluded. Design of walking robots often concentrates
propagate the plant by cutting off a pad and placing on limiting COGS effects by shifting weights, twisting
partly in the ground. One method the plants use for ankles, etc. My robots take the opposite direction to
propagation is to drop pads onto the ground when capitalize on COGS effects and the resulting impact
they become crowded or water becomes scarce. The on brush dynamics. GIMPY1, for instance, is unusu-
pads get moved by animals and take root in a new lo- ally wide for an autonomous mobile robot, as a way to Mark variation due to randomization
cation. There are three basic types of pads. Base pads emphasize COGS effects.
connect to the root systems and later (20 to 70 years Because nearly all of my robots depend upon two cause I use many marking devices — paint brushes,
later) turn into woody trunks and branches. End pads Randomization has been used in art in the past by Du- motors for forward motion there is a problem getting rollers, sponges, sticks, palette knives, rags and more
flower and produce fruit for one or more years and champ, Cage, Johns, and others. These artists have straight line motion since individual motors vary in — I need a brush control that allows all of the robot’s
then produce a number of new end pads. The bulk mostly used dice as a source of random numbers for their performance. Initially, I set up test devices so dynamics to transfer to the marking device. Through
of the pads are links between base and end pads. The selection or placing content in their images. Dice are I could measure each of my motors and then select many trials and many, many errors I have learned that
number and branching of links varies by species. Al- a very weak source of random numbers compared to well matched pairs. This turns out to be expensive. loose couplings work much better than rigid ones.
though as many as ten new end pads can be gener- the capabilities of even simple microcontrollers. Even Sometimes I had to buy 5 motors to get a good pair.
ated, all but one or two (in some species, three) of the 8-bit microcontrollers that support Java have 32-bit More important; my robots operate for hundreds and A filmmaker who was filming me painting asked, “If
pads will drop off in the next few years. Which pads random number generation, which is like rolling mil- hundreds of hours while stopping and starting on it’s art by robots, why are you so busy?” First, it’s
remain to become the structure of the plant have a cel- lions of dice. We use this capability to control the sub-second intervals. This causes the motors to wear art with robots. The robot does not make it easier to
lular automata like dependency upon its neighbors. range, precision, and randomness of the numbers far,
far beyond the reach of dice. Early randomization in over time and they don’t wear evenly, so motor pairs paint, but does make the painting special. The speed
To me, a great danger of art with robots is that it can art was just moving erratically through a small (often that started with performance curves no longer match of the robot is set to make good brushwork, but it
become predictable, routine, even rubber stamp-like. very small) pattern. Today, we can actually get much in a few months. To overcome this I use software to runs continuously. When I paint by hand I can pause
closer to natural variation. balance the motors by commanding the slow one to go between each brush stroke so there really isn’t much
If you look at a group of blossoms on a plant you can a little faster. Now, minor tuneups by measuring and of a speed requirement. Not so when working with
see two characteristics. First, each flower is logically My robots are almost all programmed in Java, so a lot revising the profile keep my robots working well for a robot. The robot keeps walking and responding to
composed the same way, with the same center and of the code is reused between them. To do this I have years. For more sophisticated motor circuits there are what it sees while I load brushes with paint and place
pattern of petals. Second, no two of the actual flowers a profile for each robot including forward speed, turn- better solutions, of course. them in the robot. I usually work with the robot in a
are physically alike. The orientation of the bloom to ing speed, balancing factors, sensors thresholds, hys- number of sessions each about 20-30 minutes. Then I
10 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 11
7. The sessions can be very hectic. If I am not ready
when a new brush is needed, I might miss a curve
or starting point that I felt was important. I prepare
borders on the table around the canvas so that the
robot will walk back onto the canvas if it walks off.
Some sessions go well, almost like a long, long dance.
Sometimes the sessions are so frantic, I feel like a mad
scientist. What counts in the end, though, is not how
the session felt, but what image was made. When I
first began, I destroyed or painted out more than 80%
of the paintings I made. Now I am better, so I only
paint out about 45%.
In his book Jazz, Matisse said, “In art, truth and re-
have to wait. It is usually not good to have the robot ality begin when you no longer understand anything
walk through wet paint. Sometimes it looks OK for you do or know.” In my work, I reach this state of
the robot to walk in wet paint, but the paint can “kick mind in the rhythm and speed of the sessions. There is
up” from the feet and into the gears and motors which always in my work a strong conflict between plan and
leads to earlier death of these parts. So I work in a ses- actual and I think much of emotional appeal comes
sion that is a layer or a section of the total image and from that conflict.
then study the results and plan the next session while
the paint dries. With acrylics in Arizona this is about Recently, I painted a very large guitar as part of Gui-
an hour, but sometimes more for thicker paint. Before tarmania, a public art project to benefit Big Broth-
I begin a painting I mix more than enough paint col- ers Big Sisters. The guitar was an exact replica of a
Fender Stratocaster and was ten feet tall. Because
ors to last for the total picture. I have a large holder of
more than 100 brushes (many are alike). I drop used none of the surfaces were actually flat, it turned out
brushes into water during sessions and clean up all to be much more difficult than I expected. The robots
brushes between sessions. would fall over or even fall off the guitar completely.
I had to work in very short brushstrokes to overcome
I also use a lot of clamps of various sizes for control- these problems.
ling brush depth and orientation. Early sessions may
also use paper cutouts to define initial shapes. To complete this guitar took more than 230 hours and
used up over 200 AA batteries. The guitar was dis-
Sometimes I use multiple brushes. This lets colors played on Mill St in Tempe, AZ very near the ASU
blend on the canvas and some parallel lines as well campus for about four months and then was auctioned
One small brush with intense color and a large flat for charity and is now in the lobby of a company in
brush with lighter color can produce a blended edge. Phoenix.
12 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 13
8. Here are some examples of my work:
MEMBERSHIP FORM YLEM
YLEM yearly membership includes: BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Directory An annual publication in which you are listed with approximately 250 Torrey Nommesen: President
other artists of new art forms Julie Newdoll: Vice President
Journals The bi-monthly YLEM Journal contains articles on numerous topics Loren Means: Treasurer
along with news of members Kristine Brown: Secretary
Forums YLEM presents bi-monthly forums at San Francisco’s Exploratorium, Stephen Wilson
curates shows, and arranges special site visits
Web Site The YLEM website includes a link to member websites ADVISORY BOARD
Exhibits YLEM periodically showcases member work at prestigious galleries Ruth Eckland
Independent Artist
Name Theodosia Ferguson
Int’l Society for Arts, Sciences, Technology
Business Nathan Friedman
Mathematics Dept., SUNY Albany
Address Robert Gelman
Multimedia Artist, producer
Lucia Grossberg-Morales
Independent Artist
Home Phone Molly Hankwitz
Independent Arist
Work Phone Eleanor Kent
Artist/Curator
Email Barbara Lee
Independent Artist
Website Roger Malina
Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Physics
[ ] New member Mike Mosher
[ ] Continuing member Saginaw Valley State University
Dr. Clifford A. Pickover
How did you discover YLEM? IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Library
Trudy Myrrh Reagan
YLEM founder
Please describe your work and/or interests as you would like it to appear in the Mary Stieglitz
directory in 30 words or less (attach additional pages if necessary) Art and Design Dept., Iowa State University
Larry Shaw
Curvatial Photography
Privacy: Fred Stitt
[ ] Do not include me in the website directory San Francisco Institute of Architecture
[ ] Do not include me in the annual directory Patricia Tavenner
[ ] Do not include my name if the mailing list is sold to a member UC Berkeley Extension
Joan Truckenbrod
Membership Rates: School of the Art Institute of Chicago
US (Individual) $40
US (Institution) $60 JOURNAL
US (Student/Senior) $30 Loren Means: Executive Editor
Contributing Member $100 Leda Marritz: Design and Layout
Donor Member $300
Patron $500 FORUMS
CyberStar Member $1,000 Trudy Myrrh Reagan: YLEM founder
WEBSITE
Canada/Mexico add USD $5. All other countries ass USD $25 to cover shipping
Torrey Nommesen
expenses. US currency only. Please mail a check or money order payable to
YLEM, PO Box 31923, San Francisco, CA 94131-0923
For more information, contact us at ylem@ylem.org
14 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6 15
9. YLEM
JOURNAL
artists using science and technology
ylem [pronounced eye-lem]
-noun
1. Greek: for the exploding mass from which the
universe emerged; the material of the universe
prior to creation.
YLEM is an international organization of artists, scientists, authors, curators,
educators and art enthusiasts who explore the Intersection of Arts and Sciences.
Science and Technology are driving forces in contemporary culture, and YLEM
members strive to bring the humanizing and unifying forces of art to this arena.
YLEM members work in contemporary media such as Computer-Based Art, Kinetic
Sculpture, Interactive Multimedia, Robotics, 3D Media, Film and Video.
CONTACT INFORMATION
MEMBERSHIP
members@ylem.org
JOURNAL
Loren Means
149 Evelyn Way
San Francisco, CA 94127
USA
lorenmea@pacbell.net
www.ylem.org
16 YLEM JOURNAL: Vol. 27, No. 6