Date: Jul 14 2021, 1pm – 5pm ET (5pm – 9pm UTC)
Links and Schedule:
Exhibition – Gather.town
Feel free to view the exhibition during or after the workshop. The space will continue to be available.
Alternative Web Exhibition – Gallery
This link will direct you to a web catalog for the exhibited works.
Presentations – Gather.town
Invited Artist Presentation 1:10–2:40 pm ET, 5:10-6:40 pm UTC
Workshop Presentation 2:50–3:40 pm ET, 6:50-7:40 pm UTC
Panel Discussion – Bluejeans
Panel Discussion 4-5pm ET, 8-9pm UTC
More info here: Workshop Instructions
This workshop draws from the idea that art plays a critical role in establishing culture and understanding of how technology impacts broader society. Robotics and machine learning particularly can bring a radical transformation to the act of creative expression, by computationally replacing, enhancing or complementing artistic creativity and skills—that we have traditionally believed as exclusive to humans. This workshop aims at bringing researchers and artists who bridge the worlds of engineering and arts from different perspectives, and discussing critical opportunities and challenges in robotic art. These include: How can we effectively evaluate the artistry and creativity of an automation? When and whether do we call an algorithmic creation an art? Where is the threshold between randomness and creativity? Who has creative authorship, when art is created by technology? Would technology eventually render human artistry and creativity irrelevant? This workshop will showcase the contemporary artistic and research works in robotics x arts through a virtual exhibition, and extend onto a deep discussion on how robotics x arts could provide frameworks of theory and practice as a scientific discipline.
Invited Artists
- Harshit Agrawal, Adobe Research, Individual Artist
- Peter Schaldenbrand, CMU, PhD Student
- Eunsu Kang, CMU Machine Learning, Visiting Professor
- Robert Twomey, University of Nebraska, Assistant Professor
- Daniel Berio, PhD Student, Goldsmith University
- Amy Laviers, Director at Robot, Automation and Dance Lab
Panelists
- Ken Goldberg, Professor, UC Berkeley
- Kim Baraka, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, Assistant Professor
- Patricia Alves-Oliveira, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Washington, Seattle
- Eunsu Kang, CMU Machine Learning, Visiting Professor
- Robert Twomey, University of Nebraska, Assistant Professor
Workshop Exhibitors
- Dan Moore and Madeline Gannon
- Ken Goldberg, Mark Presten, and Yahav Avigal
- Hyejun Youn and Ali Shtarbanov
- Yosra Mojtahedi and Stefan Escaida Navarro
- Catie Cuan and ThoughtWorks Arts (Ellen Pearlman/Andy McWilliams)
- Dylan Cawthorne
- Diedra Krieger
- Rodger Luo and Hui Li
- Saurav Agarwal and Srinivas Akella
Organizers
Sang Leigh (sang.leigh@design.gatech.edu, Georgia Tech, College of Design)
Jean Oh (jeanoh@nrec.ri.cmu.edu, Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute)
Frank Dellaert (frank.dellaert@cc.gatech.edu, Georgia Tech, College of Computing)
Seth Hutchinson (shutchinson30@gatech.edu, Georgia Tech, College of Computing)
Peter Schaldenbrand (pschalde@cs.cmu.edu, Carnegie Mellon University, HCII)
Gerry Chen (gchen328@gatech.edu, Georgia Tech, College of Computing)
Juan D Florez-Castillo (jdfc3@gatech.edu, Georgia Tech, College of Engineering)
Discussion Topics
- Authorship in Robotic Art
“Who has the creative authorship, when art is created by technology? When and whether do we call an algorithmic creation an art?”
Through these questions, we discuss the issue of creative authorship as artistic creation is increasingly supported, or automated, through the help of technology.
- Robot as Tool, Robot as Partner, and Robot as Art
“How do the creative roles of engineer and artist shift and blend within the practice of robotic art?”
As a follow-up question, we investigate the shifting roles between human and technology. A robot can merely be used as a tool, where the person becomes an artist and a consumer. The robot may co-create with the user taking on an equivalent role as the artist. Or the robot itself could be the creative product, where the person takes the role of an engineer.
- Evaluation of Robotic Art
“What is the success measure for robotic art? Where is the threshold between randomness and creativity? How can we effectively evaluate the artistry and creativity of an automation?”
Artistic work is examined through various aesthetic, cultural and societal lenses beyond the technical aspects of how the work is created. How might these be adapted to establish an evaluation criteria for robotic or computational systems that generate art?
- Ethics and Opportunities
“Would technology eventually render human artistry and creativity irrelevant?”
Robotic art opens the door to extreme performances and outputs that may render humans irrelevant in certain genres of art. We discuss what values we should keep from traditional art and how we could ensure that human creativity takes a critical role in the practice of robotic/computational art. Furthermore, art is political by nature. When art creation is driven by algorithms and automation, how should we interpret the works and what socio-cultural impacts could technology-driven art bring?