Roboaction(s)A1 K1 is a post-media art practice that combines drawing, movement, sound and video. In his project, Dragan Ilić executes a ten-minute performance/gestural action with an advanced robot, Kuka K210+DI, which allows his body to rotate at a speed of up to two  to three meters per second. He achieves dramatic expression and numerous movements along a vertical and horizontal axis. Using a specially created tool made up of pencils or brushes, he executes his dynamic, monumental drawings on paper (or canvas). This in turn enables audio and video recordings of his art actions, which represent the means of his artistic post-production.

The idea behind the performance is based on a futuristic quest to achieve interaction between the body and the machine, the creation of multi-functional mobility and the realization of a hybrid body or android. This particular art action is based on his decades-long interest in the movement of elementary particles and their mechanical and magnetic rotations.

Courtesy of the artist and GV Art London

The composed mega-portraits are disturbing. Face Cartography is the Swiss publicity and news photographer Daniel Boschung’s latest project. He maps faces. Instead of taking pictures himself, he removes himself from the process by delegating the work to an ABB industrial robot controlled by  specially customized software. The standardized portraits make a surprising impact. Each picture consists of about 600 single shots comprising 900 million pixels. The result is hype-realistic. Stubble turns into a trunk, a wrinkle into a canyon, a nostril into a cavern. These facial landscapes are dismaying—why? Emotions are completely absent. They appear only briefly, while macro photography takes half an hour. The human subject has to remain motionless while being photographed by the robot.

Tomotaka Takahashi has led the RoBoHoN project as an industrial designer, concept designer and motion developer, and as a result of two  years’ project development effort, RoBoHoN launched in Japan in May 2016 as the world’s first mobile robotic phone.

To realize RoBoHoN’s “Heart moving phone” concept, RoBoHoN not only has the basic functions of a mobile phone but is also equipped with a camera, projector and robotics functions, including the voice communication system. These are all embedded in a compact humanoid robot body, 19.5 cm high and weighing only approx. 390 g, small enough to be carried anywhere.

In addition, the technology highlights of RoBoHoN are the newly developed servomotors, one of the smallest in the world, allowing this humanoid robot to walk on two legs in spite of its small body, and the newly developed built-in micro laser projector with focus-free operation, which allows users to project photos, videos, and maps onto a screen or a wall. Users can also download dedicated apps to give RoBoHoN new functions and services over Wi-Fi or mobile networks.

This project explores the design and control of modular robots, called Roombots, to be used as building blocks for furniture that moves, self-assembles, and self-reconfigures. Modular robots are made of multiple simple robotic modules that can attach and detach. Connectors between units allow the creation of arbitrary and changing structures depending on the task to be solved. They offer higher versatility and robustness, as well as the possibility of self-reconfiguration. The type of scenario that we envision is a group of Roombots that autonomously connect to each other to form different types of furniture, e.g. stools, chairs, sofas and tables, depending on user requirements. This furniture will change shape over time as well as using actuated joints to move to different locations depending on the users needs. When not needed, the group of modules can create a static structure such as a wall or a box.