Our interactive installation responds to a commonly cited social fear–robots taking over work from humans. The World Economic Forum predicts that robots will take five million jobs over the next five years. However, we believe in a more optimistic future, where robots do not replace humanity, but instead enhance and complement it. Ordinarily, robots like Mimus are completely segregated from humans as they do highly repetitive tasks on a production line. With Mimus, we illustrate how wrapping clever software around industry-standard hardware can completely reconfigure our relationship to these complex, and often dangerous, machines. Rather than viewing robots as human adversaries, we show a future where autonomous machines like Mimus might be companions that peacefully co-exist with us on this planet.

Industrial robots are the foundation of our robotic infrastructure, and have remained relatively unchanged over the past 50 years. With Mimus, we highlight an untapped potential for this old industrial technology to work with people, not against them. Our software illustrates how small, strategic changes to an automation system can take a one-ton beast-of-a-machine from spot welding car chassis in a factory, to curiously following a child around a museum like an excited puppy. We hope to show that despite our collective anxieties about robotics, there is potential for empathy and companionship between humans and machines.

Credits

Madeline Gannon is the founder and principal researcher of ATONATON

Development Team: Madeline Gannon, Julian Sandoval, Kevyn McPhail, Ben Snell

Supported by: Autodesk, ABB Robotics, and The Studio for Creative lnquiry

About the artist

Madeline Gannon (US) is a multidisciplinary designer working at the intersection of art and technology. She leads ATONATON, a research studio inventing better ways to communicate with machines. In her research, Gannon designs and implements cutting-edge tools that explore the future of digital making. Her work blends disciplinary knowledge from design, robotics, and human-computer interaction to innovate at the edges of digital creativity. Gannon is currently completing a PhD in Computational Design at Carnegie Mellon University, where she is developing techniques for digitally designing and fabricating wearables on and around the body.

Lesen Sie mehr auf: starts-prize.aec.at.

This project is presented in the framework of the STARTS Prize 2017. STARTS Prize received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 732019.

Currently, the Modular Rhythm Machine is composed of 36 modules. Each is conceived both as a modular construction piece and as a self-playing wooden box-drum. They are respectively equipped with a servo-motor attached to a stick and an ultrasonic sensor to detect people’s proximity. Its modularity allows for flexibility in shape, size and construction.

This project is funded in part by the Council for the Arts at MIT and by MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology.

Joseph Herscher (NZ), u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD (AT), c3 (HU), mb21 (DE), bugnplay (CH)

The Youth Exchange Project is a workshop that will be held in POSTCITY throughout the festival’s run together with groups of youngsters from other countries.

The participants are selected by u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD and our partner organizations: c3 (Hungary), mb21 (Germany) and bugnplay (Switzerland); this year’s newcomers are from ArtTechLab Amsterdam. What they all have in common is expertise in a particular area—for instance, soldering, working with tools, programming, designing, writing texts, generating concepts, painting. All together, there’s a good mix of skills.

Joseph Herscher is the artist who will be working together with young people to develop the language of the so-called unintelligent machine. In going about this, the young people embark on a journey of discovery into the intelligence of a machine. On various levels, they will pose questions such as: What makes the machine and why? Is it even appropriate to speak of intelligence in this case? How can I recognize the consequences and the effectiveness of interventions in complex, interdependent systems? The answers—and, at the same time, the method of arriving at them—are simply stated: experimentation! By making processes visible and taking mechanisms all the way to the point of insignificance, these young people, equipped with an open mind can also face the question: Does it always have to be the direct approach to a solution? Can’t detours even constitute something valuable in their own right, and serve as the source of additional solutions?

The youngsters’ primary task is to build a machine from everyday objects. The festival theme, artificial intelligence, and this year’s u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD focus on the perspectives that frame this group encounter with the so-called unintelligent machine.

He built the first phase of the machine as part of his graduation from HKU University of the Arts Utrecht in 2015. Since then he has developed a plan to control the machine by biometric data that he obtains from sensors on his body. Heart rate, muscle tension, body temperature, orientation / gravity are measured and translated to variations in motion. Thus not only does the body respond to the movements of the Neurotransmitter, the Neurotransmitter also responds to the body.

Credits

Supported by STRP Biënnale (NL)
With the help of Bas Bakx and Pim Keunen

To interact with the AAS, you simply have to speak (or sing) into a microphone. The machine “listens” and repeats the sounds in the form of organic, quasi synthetic sounds. It doesn’t necessarily resynthesize comprehensible speech, but the correlation between input and output is obvious. The AAS is a versatile “performer” furnished with a rich sound palette and an idiosyncratic personality.

Instructions for use: Use the microphone to control the AAS with your own voice.

Credits

www.krzysztofcybulski.com/aas.html

AI has made sure there always is! A “speech race” is upon us. First we had interactive voice response systems, now with natural language interface systems we have our new “weavers of speech,” these modern day “voices with a smile” are changing the way we communicate with our phones. Siri, Alexa, Bibxy, Cortana and Google Assistant (shall we call her GAbby?) are all vying for your attention, but what will our budding relationships with these Boy/Girl Fridays blossom into? Hello Machine—Hello Human, touches on the playful moments that are shared between man and machine, and seeks to connect with you by inverting this relationship, by asking what can you do for her.

Hello Machines are situated across the globe in ever-changing locations and time zones. Picking up the receiver rings the other Hello Machines, creating space for spontaneous voice visiting. They provide a way in which the viewer can interact with re-animated, technically obsolete telephone systems, utilizing present-day advances in telephony. Their aim is to open up a dialog between the technologies’ original ideas and meanings, and what makes up the “thingness” these devices now possess, by unraveling its historical and societal content that contains traces of our identity.

Credits

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Hello Machine—Hello Human was developed within the Ars Electronica Futurelab, and forms part of Rachel Hanlon’s PhD Research through Deakin University, Australia.

OUCHHH collaboration AudioFil, Kıvanç Tatar and Philippe Pasquier for an audio-visual performance with artificial intelligence. We will turn our real-time onstage performance into a human and machine collaboration by adding MASOM (an Artificial Intelligence system making music) to the new version of iOTA. MASOM is developed by Kıvanç Tatar and Philippe Pasquier. For this piece, MASOM will be trained on the previous compositions of Mehmet Ünal from AudioFIL.

In mathematics iOTA (i) denotes an imaginary unit or number; it can be used for the inclusion map of one space into another. Light is the single element which can be perceived by the eye. iOTA is an LED installation inspired by light physics and research into the origins of geometry. Corresponding to the focus of the observer, the nature of light and its different phenomena can be seen beyond the perceptivity of the human mind, and attempts to translate them into a unified, non-spatial form.

iOTA was presented on the 126 m² LED screen at Zorlu Performing Arts Center. The installation was part of Sonar +D showcase at Sonar Istanbul Festival 2017 and Digi.logue.

Credits

Producer: Ouchhh Studio
New media artists and directors: Ferdi Alıcı, Eylul Duranagac (OUCHHH)
Creative coder and AI artists: Kıvanç Tatar and Philippe Pasquier (MASOM)
Sound design and music: Mehmet Ünal from AudioFIL