Comments on: Industrial robots producing art

By: Baja

Baja — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:53:43 +0000

The scale is astounding for some of those mosaics. I think the scale of the art justifies the use of robots in it’s production.

There are many forms of art, and producing large scale images utilizing technology seems like an efficient way to do it. I like efficiency, and optimization. I admire Artaic.

By: yesys

yesys — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:06:33 +0000

Still @charlie:

by your logic, this guy is a pretty lousy violinist:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

this article was referenced on HAD previously, and i think it proves my above points pretty well.

By: yesys

yesys — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:54:54 +0000

@charlie
“The technology used to make art is not in question so much as the execution of the work itself. If the visual art communicates the idea the artist intended to the viewer successfully we can view it as good art.”

I’ll call BS on the above statement. How can one discern “the idea the artist intended”? this is a logical slippery slope that leads nowhere. What idea was Michelangelo trying to get across? Duchamp? Picasso? Basquiat? Rubens? Nobody knows any of their exact thoughts/ideas.

The above logic would suggest that Norman Rockwell was indeed a much better artist say, Rauschenberg (or anyone else, hell he was probably the best of all).

…and what if the viewer is a moron and is incapable of receiving the artist’s communications? Based on your comment above it would then be “bad” art, since the idea was not communicated.

The thing with visual art that remains constant across all genres and times is the “scene” is the most important aspect of art. without a scene you are obscure even if you have ‘talent’. (think Vincent van Gogh) Art is merely a product of a “scene” (think Warhol).

The above attempt is to make a great “scene”, not great art.

Keep studying.

By: Creative Custom Woodwork

Creative Custom Woodwork — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:35:32 +0000

The original artist is the person who came up with this idea and figured out how to do it. The machine is more creative than the products, hence the art of adaptability.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:29:14 +0000

I have a BFA in Fine Arts. Would you say a sculpture that was made using modern day technology such as power tools and things less valuable as a sculpture done with a chisel? How about the chisel vs doing it with just bare hands and other harder rocks? The technology used to make art is not in question so much as the execution of the work itself. If the visual art communicates the idea the artist intended to the viewer successfully we can view it as good art.

By: KT

KT — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:31:10 +0000

@Glenn

yea, it seems the robot is all for show, an even better way to do it would be just creating a dispensing mechanism for each color and rapidly fill up line by line. Remember the “ping pong ball display”?

By: Glenn

Glenn — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:56:02 +0000

So, all the talk about art aside…

Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to just have it, rather than pick up one piece, drop it, go back, get another piece… instead, pick up several pieces of the same color, fill in all the spaces this color is needed, return, load up another color, repeat…?

Granted, its not as showy as a robot arm moving between a mosaic form and a big table/conveyor belt continuously feeding tiles in a very complex verging rube goldberg complexity manner, placing tiles one at a time and returning to grab another.

By: PhilKll

PhilKll — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:12:44 +0000

I think its just as much fine art, as other forms of printed art, or digital art, its the same thing, just a new type of printer. Would be like using a 3d printer to make sculptures, same human artist, different paint brush. Now that would be interesting, a robot that uses a paint brush and paint, even more interesting a robot programmed to find interesting stuff to paint with that brush, making the programmer the artist, with a very complex brush. As far as it being a hack or not, wouldn’t it be a hack, because its using a technology usually purposed for something other than art, to do art? Hacking art tho would be redundant, its all about doing new things in different ways.

By: Palli

Palli — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:56:53 +0000

Artaic… Artaic?

By: nope

nope — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:48:22 +0000

Soo…It’s a relatively slow pick and place making plastic mosaics. Hmm…abit snooty are we?

By: Chris Grayson - Art Director

Chris Grayson - Art Director — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:11:32 +0000

It is a practical means of productions. Seems a stretch to sell it as “Art.” Someone is telling it what to produce so it is really the tool of and artist. The person who chose/designed the images is the designer/artist, and the robotic arm is the paintbrush, if you will.

But that doesn’t get the kind of attention that screaming headlines of “Robot Makes Art!” does, so what can you do — It’s called “Marketing”.

By: tMH

tMH — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:43:10 +0000

Inefficient as hell, yeah?
I could think of about 20 different ways off the top of my head that would be cheaper and faster than the system they are using.

By: pookie

pookie — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:41:35 +0000

I have a “robot” at my house that renders photo-realistic art. It’s called an HP Deskjet 6122.

By: Decepticon

Decepticon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:57:28 +0000

@yesys

LMAO!

To sell this as fine art is sad. It’s basically a very low res printer using tiles instead of ink.

By: David Sutherland

David Sutherland — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:44:47 +0000

This is a great implementation of technology!

Who cares if they look pretentious? Maybe the business men running this company are, maybe they are not. It’s not my culture to wear a suit and tie everyday so it’s hard for me to guess if they are smug, and frankly I don’t care.

What I care about it taking this great idea and improving on it so that I can make my own device.

It’s a great post because it stimulates thinking about how robotics are used.

If someone here creates an Arduino-based cheap version of the same device I won’t whine about hearing about that either!

Seems like there are some manufacturing processes on that machine which could be wildly simplified to bring the device into a cheaper mode.

How about instead of a pick-and-drop robot hand, using a kicker and a slide chute and gravity? Mount vertically with rails and the speed could be at least 10x faster -? no?