ORIGINAL: IEEE Spectrum
BY: Angelica Lim
May 02, 2013
You walk into the brightly lit space, and a delicate-looking plaster statue catches your eye. She has a peaceful expression, and is dressed in a modest gown with puffy shoulders and a broad skirt. Her arms stay close to her body, but the palms of her hands face gently forward, as if asking for something. As you approach, she suddenly glides forward to meet you. Her name is Diamandini, and she's a robotic statue.
Combining art and robotics is nothing new (in fact, it's something quite old), but in recent years the creations dreamed up by artists and roboticists are becoming more elaborate and striking, thanks, in part, to faster and cheaper sensors and computers. We've seen robotic sculptures that defy gravity, robots that canpaint andwrite, and squads of drones that play music, build towers, or perform choreographies. A number of workshops and festivals have gathered researchers and others interested in exploring the intersections of art and robots.
Over the last 15 years, art and technology have come together at the studio of Dr. Mari Velonaki. She is an artist and director of the Creative Robotics Lab at the University of New South Wales, in Australia. Velonaki and her team created the Diamandini installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London last fall.
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You walk into the brightly lit space, and a delicate-looking plaster statue catches your eye. She has a peaceful expression, and is dressed in a modest gown with puffy shoulders and a broad skirt. Her arms stay close to her body, but the palms of her hands face gently forward, as if asking for something. As you approach, she suddenly glides forward to meet you. Her name is Diamandini, and she's a robotic statue.
Combining art and robotics is nothing new (in fact, it's something quite old), but in recent years the creations dreamed up by artists and roboticists are becoming more elaborate and striking, thanks, in part, to faster and cheaper sensors and computers. We've seen robotic sculptures that defy gravity, robots that canpaint andwrite, and squads of drones that play music, build towers, or perform choreographies. A number of workshops and festivals have gathered researchers and others interested in exploring the intersections of art and robots.
Over the last 15 years, art and technology have come together at the studio of Dr. Mari Velonaki. She is an artist and director of the Creative Robotics Lab at the University of New South Wales, in Australia. Velonaki and her team created the Diamandini installation at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London last fall.
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