AUTHOR=Gomez Cubero Carlos, Pekarik Maros, Rizzo Valeria, Jochum Elizabeth

TITLE=The Robot is Present: Creative Approaches for Artistic Expression With Robots

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Robotics and AI

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2021.662249

DOI=10.3389/frobt.2021.662249

ISSN=2296-9144

ABSTRACT=There is growing interest in developing creative applications for robots,

specifically robots that provide entertainment, companionship, or motivation.
Identifying the hallmarks of human creativity and discerning how these processes
might be replicated or assisted by robots remain open questions. Transdisciplinary
collaborations between artists and engineers can offer insights into how robots
might foster creativity for human artists and open up new pathways for designing
interactive systems. This paper presents an exploratory research project centered
on drawing with robots. Using an arts-led, practice-based methodology, we developed
custom hardware and software tools to support collaborative drawing with an
industrial robot. A team of artists and engineers collaborated over a 6-month
period to investigate the creative potential of collaborative drawing with a robot.
The exploratory project focused on identifying creative and collaborative processes
in the visual arts, and later on developing tools and features that would allow
robots to participate meaningfully in these processes. The outcomes include a
custom interface for controlling and programming robot motion (EMCAR) and custom
tools for replicating experimental techniques used in visual art. We report on the
artistic and technical outcomes and identify key features of process-led (as
opposed to outcome-led) approaches for designing collaborative and creative
systems. We also consider the value of embodied and tangible interaction for
artists working collaboratively with computational systems. Transdisciplinary
research can help researchers uncover new approaches for designing interfaces for
interacting with machines.