This meeting has as goal to provide the reflection about the communicational systems between biological and technological systems, based on the affective computing concepts. In this sense, it requires an investigative look at the developments in robotics, wearable computing, co-evolving wearable computing and interactive digital systems related to digital affection exchanges between man-man and man-machine.

Rachel Zuanon has PhD and Master’s Degree in Communication and Semiotics and Bachelor Degree in Art. Leader of the postgraduate program in Hypermidia Design and the graduate course in Digital Design at Universidade Anhembi Morumbi. Professor at the Body Languages Department at PUC-SP. Partner at Zuannon Design and Interactive Technologies. Multimedia artist and designer. Today she is developing the second prototype of her research object: “Wearable Affective Co-evolutive Computer - Biocybernetic Relational Object”, supported by the Rumos Arte Cibernética Award 2007, from Itaú Cultural. Researcher of the art-design-science-technology interfaces, she focus manly in the themes related to: wearable computing, brain-computer interfaces, electric neuro-muscle stimulation, arts of the body, mobility design, Interactive Digital Television design and immersing-interactive environments.

Steven Gentner will be speaking about a robot project built using RoboRealm, a powerful free computer vision based application for use in machine vision, image analysis, and image processing systems.

Gil Kuno’s sonic artworks displace natural activity from its context, revealing an otherwise hidden level of metaphorical absurdity within the ordinary patterns present before our eyes.

Brett Doar is a “paratechnologist” who creates “idiosyncratic electro-mechanical creatures out of inappropriate materials.”

thisAbility vs. Disability is an international electronic art exhibition looking upon themes of disability through creative transition of the senses. You can experience and enjoy ten fascinating interactive electronic artworks, including: a painting seen through your hand by the touch of the wind, a digital musical instrument played by facial gestures, a robot responding to your voice, a table transmitting your hand’s touch into light, a block transforming Braille into sound, a harmonic bell playing according to your heartbeat, and so on. We are very pleased to invite you to experience this unique electronic art show.

Invited Artists: Mika Fukumori; Haru Ji & Graham Wakefield; Jae Min Lee; Mian Sheng Lim (Leon); Haemin Kim; Kichul Kim; Pauline Oliveros, Leaf Miller, Zevin Polzin, & Zane Van Dusen; David Parker; Jin Wan Park; Dmitry Strakovsky

Curator: Byeong Sam Jeon

In previous editions, prizes have been awarded to artistic projects created with robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user interaction, interactive architectures, augmented reality pieces and works that explore the social aspects of A-life.

A total of 40,000 will be awarded to the three projects selected by the jury: First prize: 18,000, Second prize: 14,000, Third prize: 8,000. The winning pieces may be exhibited at Fundacisn Telefsnica’s Virtual Museum and in the exhibitions related to art and new technologies it organises or takes part in.

Works of art submitted must not be more than two years old. This enables the competition to keep updated and aware of the last technological trends in the field of artificial life.

Tourists and Travelers features an unlikely pair of projects that reflect the artists’ interests in journeys across real and virtual spaces: a Second Life avatar modeled on Mahatma Gandhi and a tourist-chasing, robotic duck. Choi, from Seoul, Korea, and DeLappe, from Reno, Nevada, both traveled to New York City for their residencies as recipients of Eyebeam’s inaugural Commission for Resident Artists.

Taeyoon Choi’s electro-mechanical bird Camerautomata Charlie: Image Digesting Robotic Duck is unleashed in tourist-heavy habitats, such as New York City’s Central Park, to roam and snap-and then defecate-photos of its own. Born of a hacked digital camera, printer and vacuum cleaner, Camerautomata Charlie and its flock will be on display at Eyebeam alongside digital prints, drawings, and video documentation of interventions in public spaces.

Joseph DeLappe will present documentation, artifacts and new works derived from The Salt Satyagraha Online-Gandhi’s Salt March in Second Life, his 240-mile reenactment of the walk in real life and in cyberspace. Over the course of 26 days in the spring of 2008, DeLappe walked the entire distance on a customized treadmill at Eyebeam, which was programmed to control his online Gandhi avatar in Second Life. A centerpiece of the Tourist and Travelers exhibition is a monumental cardboard replica-the same height, in fact, as Michelangelo’s sculpture of David-created from a 3-D model of the Gandhi avatar. Large format prints, stop-action animations, and video from the performance piece will also be on view.

On June 21 Eyebeam will also hold its annual Open Studios, from 3-6PM. During Open Studios, Eyebeam resident and fellow artists welcome the public into their working environments and showcase recent projects. Artists participating in the 2008 Open Studios include: Ayah Bdeir, Jeff Crouse, Geraldine Juarez, David Jimison, Friedrich Kirschner, Steve Lambert, Zachary Lieberman, JooYoun Paek, Dan Torop, Addie Wagenknecht, Joe Winter and Eyebeam student residents Tahj Banks and Glenroy Moore.

Documentation and projects by Jamie Allen, Jessica Banks, Michael Mandiberg and Andrew Paterson will also be on view.

Eyebeam’s programs for artists and technologists support the creative research, production and presentation of initiatives that query art, technology and culture. The Commission for Resident Artists is a period of concentration and immersion in artistic investigation, daring research or experimental production of visionary expression, applications and projects. The 2008 Commission, underwritten by Dewar’s, was awarded to one American and one international artist; the award included a stipend as well as additional support for travel and accommodation.

Founded in 1997, Eyebeam is an art and technology center that provides a fertile context and state-of-the-art tools for digital experimentation. It is a lively incubator of creativity and thought, where artists and technologists actively engage with the larger culture, addressing the issues and concerns of our time. Eyebeam challenges convention, celebrates the hack, educates the next generation, encourages collaboration, freely offers its output to the community, and invites the public to share in a spirit of openness: open source, open content and open distribution.

Eyebeam’s current programs are made possible through the generous support of The Atlantic Foundation, The Pacific Foundation, the Johnson Art and Education Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, Dewar’s, Deep Green Living, ConEdison, Datagram, Electric Artists Inc.; public funds from New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and many generous individuals.

Location: 540 W. 21st Street between 10th & 11th Avenues
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 6:00pm
Bookstore: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 6:00pm
Admission: All events are free to the public with a suggested donation unless otherwise noted.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/01/BUT110VMT4.DTL or http://www.technologyreview.com/advertisement.aspx?ad=infotech&id=35
&redirect=%2FWire%2F20836%2F%3Fnlid%3D1107%26a%3Df

Image from http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/00114/works.htm, where you can catch up on the history of robotic rovers.

We have no fixed idea of what qualifies as robotic art; if you think it’s a robot and you think it’s art, we encourage you to submit your work. Regardless of whether it’s hi-tech, low-tech, or neg-tech, we’re interested in the ideas you’re working with, not just the gear. Proposals for workshops, performances, and other kinds of participation are also welcome.

Each ArtBots is a bit different; the location changes and we invite new humans to co-curate the show with us. We hope that by changing the specifics of the show each year we can keep it accessible to a diverse range of people, works, and ideas.

This year’s co-curators are: Warren Ellis: author of novels, comics, video games, and screenplays; blogger and creator of numerous online forums; Marie Redmond: computer science professor; director of the MSc Multimedia Systems Course, Trinity College; entrepreneur; Douglas Repetto: artist and teacher; Director of Research at the Columbia University Computer Music Center, director and founder of ArtBots, dorkbot, organism, and music-dsp.

ArtBots is a hands-on, community-oriented show, run by and for artists. Participating artists install their own work and are present during the show to meet one another, maintain their pieces, and talk with visitors. Each participant is given a 1000 Euro artist fee to help cover the cost of attending. All costs, including shipping, travel, lodging, meals, etc., are the responsibility of the artist. While we cannot provide additional monetary resources, we are happy to provide invitation letters or other documents that might help artists with local grant applications, sponsorships, etc.

Important Dates:

Deadline for entries: 1 May
Acceptance notifications sent: 2 June
Artists confirm participation by: 16 June
Show load-in and installation: 16-18 September
Show open: 19-21 September
Breakdown and load-out: 22 September

The Science Gallery is a new public science centre located in the heart of Dublin city. A place where ideas meet, the Gallery will bring together people with diverse interests and backgrounds including creative thinkers and young innovators, to connect, explore, create, debate and share ideas on science, technology and the arts, opening up these fields to new audiences. The Science Gallery ’space’ consists of a 144-seater multimedia theatre, studios, café and stunning open gallery space, providing an ideal location for new emerging creative talent to be discovered through a programme of changing exhibitions, events and workshops. With a target audience of 15 year olds up and an emphasis on creating a collaborative community, the Science Gallery, which launched in February 2008 with LIGHTWAVE, a nine-day festival exploring the art and science of controlling light already has over 2000 members.

Browsing the Synapse Database — which is searchable by “Individuals”, “Interests”, “Projects / Events / Publications,” “Organizations” and “Gallery” — I came across Nigel Helyer’s Sonic Landscapes R + D project:

From June 1999 until September 2001, Helyer worked as an Artist in Residence at Lake Technology in Sydney, developing the Sonic Landscapes Virtual Audio Reality system … The salient feature of the Sonic Landscapes project is the juxtaposition of a fictive (but very convincing) 3D immersive sound-scape, accurately positioned by cartographic software, upon a physical terrain. The effect is somewhat akin to Murray Schafer’s concept of ‘Schitzophonia’, where, by the simple act of recording, sound is split from its original physical context and projected into another context.

However within a Sonic Landscapes experience we are not simply dealing with the disembodied voices of popular music reproduced and re-contextualised via a stereo-sytem! Here we are engaging with a seemingly live sonic organism that is responsive to our presence, our orientation and the traces of our wanderings, and which appears un-cannily embedded in the site itself.

The prototype Sonic Landscapes Unit is capable of operating with a 2cm positional accuracy when employing differential GPS (Global Satellite Positioning) and with a one degree accuracy for rotational head orientation, which, when combined with Lake’’s headphones delivered virtual speaker array, provides a highly realistic immersive audio environment. Tracking technology for the Sonic Landscapes project has been provided throughout by the SNAP Lab of the University of New South Wales under the guidance of Professor Chris Rizos. Future collaborative projects are currently underway between the Artist and UNSW c.f. “Audio Nomad”.The choice of a prototype test site for the project was St Stephens graveyard in Newtown; one of Sydney’s oldest burial grounds, which provided an ideal pedestrian environment, rich in historical material and interesting physical structures.

FatherBoard, The SuperAvatar @ Share 2008 - Robot Art

Alex Zivanovic, a Visiting Scholar at the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, has been researching the work of Edward Ihnatowicz and building an excellent archive which is available online. I am so pleased that Alex is taking the time to research thoroughly how Ihnatowicz not just built the Senster but developed its behaviours. It was a truely ground breaking piece of work that is still a source of inspiration for artists and roboticists today.

Photo Gallery | System Details including Original Code | Structural Design

Ihnatowicz’s interest in the kinetics stemmed from his conviction that the behaviour of something tells us far more about it than its appearance. This led him to build the Senster, one of the most influential kinetic sculptures ever made. It consisted of a fifteen-foot-long steel frame articulated in six different places, with the joints all powered by hydraulics. On the Senster’s ‘head’ were an array of microphones and a Doppler radar system.

The Honeywell mini-computer controlling the mechanism was programmed to make it react to three things: moderate and low sounds, loud sounds, and fast motion. Moderate sounds the head would move towards, loud sounds it would pull back from, and fast motion it would track. The result was an uncanny resemblance to a living thing, and the crowds at the Evoluon in Eindhoven, Holland, where it was on show reacted with enormous excitement. Children would shout and wave at it, call it names, and even throw things. Ihnatowicz explains that its movements seemed to stem from situations that people recognized.

In the quiet of the early morning the machine would be found with its head down, listening to the faint noise of its own hydraulic pumps. Then if a girl walked by the head would follow her, looking at her legs. Ihnatowicz described his own first stomach-turning experience of the machine when he had just got it working: he unconsciously cleared his throat, and the head came right up to him as if to ask, ‘Are you all right?’ He also noticed a curious aspect of the effect the Senster had on people. When he was testing it he gave it various random patterns of motion to go through.

Children who saw it operating in this mode found it very frightening, but no one was ever frightened when it was working in the museum with its proper software, responding to sounds and movement. Although the Senster was dismantled some years ago, many people who saw it still remember vividly what a strong impression it made on them. Edward Ihnatowicz died in 1988. Alex Zivanovic currently continues to build on the archive as well as running science and technology education events and his own firm AZ Consultants, supporting the development of mechatronics projects for medical and industrial applications.

Edward Ihnatowicz Archive [blogged by Ruairi Glynn on Interactive Architecture dot org]