Moscow Sheremetyevo airport terminal last night. Temperature: 2°. Traffic into town: terrible (the sound of studded tyres on tarmac made the journey -somehow- more interesting).
I am setting up for a post apocalypse-themed wrekshop for the Art Experiment:Laboratories of Earthly Survival exhibition in the Garage contemporary art museum. My survival odds are very good if I trust the perfectly seared tuna I just ate in the museum restaurant…
Studded tyre sign, the letter sha
I found this photo while tidying some drawers. These are two friends in robot costumes for a no-budget sci-fi pilot I shot in 1993 called Euronutrifood. They are supposed to be evil slave robots. Thanks again and respect to the ghosts in the machine: Raphaëlle Paupert-Borne and Matthieu Demouzon.
Atmoshere, Geosphere, Biosphere, Noosphere: The sphere of human thought now criss-crossing the world in binary strings AD DA conversions analog to digital --> to? analog? data fit for human understanding
Robotic artist Paul Granjon and bio-engineer Michka Melo are exploring the usability of microbial fuel cells for powering small robotic, sensing, interactive systems. Microbial fuel cells work by harnessing the electron-releasing capability of certain types of bacteria widely found in soil and mud. Paul and Michka have started working together on Microbial Fuel Cells, commonly known as Mud Batteries, in 2016.
Their batteries contain sediment mud from Barry Island, Wales. The mud is rich in bacteria of the Shewanella (below) or Geobacter type, that deliver bioelectrogenesis (generation of electricity by living organisms).
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In September 2017 we showed our first working prototype in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Digital Design Weekend in London, here is the link to fully detailed report on our experiments on microbial fuel cells before the event.
We had a great time, lots of questions and interest with amazed, amused, puzzled looks. Our bacteria worked hard and slow, 12 mud batteries powering 2 small robots for 10 seconds every 10 minutes. The robots run from a BBC Microbit each, with a small motor and an LED.
Thanks to Irini Papadimitriou for inviting us!
photo: Martine Goldschmidt-Clermont
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Our mud experiments led to the production of Mudbots, an installation featuring 11 mobile robots.
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With support from FabCre8 @ Cardiff School of Art and Design
work in progress
See our mini machines moved by bacterial mud power, among a great selection of cutting edge projects by international artists and designers, during the Digital Design Weekend in Victoria and Albert Museum London, 23rd and 24th September 2017.
Detailed info on our work with microbial fuel cells here.
LAUREN is a project by new media artist Lauren McCarthy. She will impersonate a home automation assistant not unlike Amazon’s Alexia, responding to users’ vocal commands and acting on their connected domestic environment. Project Lauren will last 3 days.
“Lauren will control your home for you, attempting to get better than an AI, understanding you as a person”.
I reckon it is a no brainer for Lauren the HI (human intelligence) to be better than Alexa or Siri, examples mentioned by the artist on the project’s website.
Volunteers might feel more morally observed than by an artificial assistant, and may have to deal with interruptions of service due to naps or other very human breaks.
You can apply here if you are interested in hosting Lauren in your home.
— Why do I blog about that?
I have an ongoing interest in the way machines and humans roles overlap or shift, takeover, resistance, harmony, symbiosis. Power, delegation, cyber-isation. Lauren is an interesting gesture that reminds us about the unique -as yet- touch humans can bring to other humans in a way machines cannot. My own Am I Robot installation works on a similar principle of injecting HI in a system normally driven by AI or simpler algorithms.
The Wizard of Oz, HI trickster, exposed by Toto's down to earth DI (dog intelligence)
The robot fans readers will know about Boston Dynamics‘ Spot Mini, a pretty amazing quadruped robot I mentioned a while ago. On 19th July 2017, an upgraded version was introduced to the clients of Boston Dynamics’ new owner, Softbank Japan. Spot has been given an “arm”, that looks as much as a neck and jaws as it does an arm.
These characteristics would make Spot Mini an ideal candidate for the Coy-B Wild Robot experiment that’s been haunting me fo the past ten years, with highs and lows. For reasons of reliability, cost and battery usage, I did not think of Coy-B as a legged robot. Yet, something agile and uncanny like Spot Mini would be very good for the job!
The demo shows a robotic creature whose abilities are, if not quite at the level of those demonstrated by the coyote that inspired Coy-B, fluid and fast enough for a very engaging real-time interaction with a human. Loaded with a suitable set of teeth and a wild AI program of course.
When will it be available at the robot shop around the corner?
Just back from the Deershed Festival in Topcliffe UK where I ran a 3 days Wrekshop for kids. The festival’s theme was Wilderwild [not sure where they got that from. I understood it as something to do with woods and some spooky friendly vibe you can get in nature]. I thought it would be a good opportunity to make an ELECTRIC WILDERTREE combining e-waste, the relentless energy of children with screwdrivers and a bit of expert technological creativity.
One hour before the attack
Wrekshop leftovers ready to go back to recycling facilities
Robot in fountain
Good old Combover Jo the purple hairy robot with an unfortunate hairstyle is roaming until September 24th in Humber Street Gallery Hull as part of States of Play, an exhibition organised by the Craft Council of England.
“States of Play is a new Crafts Council exhibition for Hull City of Culture 2017 which shows how play shapes our lives and the world around us.
Work by sixteen UK and international makers and designers turn upside down the idea that play is the preserve of children. Instead it is revealed as a creative, social and political force that infuses all areas of life.”
For the occasion Combover Jo has been updated to version 2.0, losing its hands but gaining an eye, and a much improved dream state. Confirming its crowd-pleaser status, the trickster robot moved among and played with a busy crowd on the opening night amongst incredulous gasps and loud laughs. The show runs until September 24th.
Photo by Tom Arran
Things I liked in States of Play include twisted 3D printer works Thingiverse gone GMO nightmare by Matthew Plummer Hernandez, rejection letter automated crows by Ting Tong Chang, blow-activated wind device by MischerTraxler Studio, the optical non-things by Glithero and the silver pineapples on the gallery’s front by Silo Studio. Check it out, Hull as City of Culture 2017 has lots going on!
Combover Jo is the moving part of the installation Am I Robot, originally commissioned for The Imitation Game exhibition in Manchester Art Gallery. The exhibition was inspired by Alan Turing’s seminal paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence.