Eduardo Kac "The Origin and Development of Robotic Art"
Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe's Robot K-456
Robotic art has expanded greatly from its beginning. Though most people, including myself, think of robots as those inorganic beings like those seen in movies or read about in books, robotic art is not only those things but still have the science fiction quality of those types of stories. Robots are thought to be more useful to humans, making jobs easier and letting people relax while robots do all the work but Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe’s “Robot K-456” was something completely different. It was a somewhat silly machine that played Mozart’s K-456, a recording of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address and excreted beams. This was the opposite of the helper robot that many thought would emerge in the modern world.
I thought that a lot of the robotic art pieces were very interesting. I found the ones involving plants in one way or another the most fascinating. James Seawright’s “House Plants” were two computer controlled robotic flowers. The larger would open its four petals at night while the shorter plant produced a sound pattern when small disks opened and closed. “The Senster” by Ihnatowicz was a shy robot that would move away from the louder audience and move its head towards quieter viewers. This is a more interactive piece and I thought it was cute to imagine a huge machine shying away from loud people. What I thought was sort of disturbing was “Rabot” by Mark Pauline. I just think putting an exoskeleton on a dead rabbit that makes it walk is something freaky to watch.
Machiko Kusahara "Device Art: A New Form of Media Art from a Japanese Perspective"
SIGGRAPH06 - Bubbles
Device art is when a device plays a key role in certain types of art to realize the artist’s concept. It uses the more playful side of technology to make this kind of art. There is nothing too serious like how at SIGGRAPH06 , people could touch soap bubble with images on its surface that would produce sounds once the bubble was popped by a touch. This kind of art has been criticized as not being serious enough by the Western art community but I think this would be a fun experience. I would really like to play around with the bubble machine at SIGGRAPH06.