Curious Tautophone still to be seen at Latrobe Regional Gallery till 30th of June
Curious Tautophone on Australia tour – this time in Victoria at Latrobe Regional Gallery: 6 April – 30 June 2019
Author Archives: adkat
Empathy Swarm exploring the Human Aspect at Grotowski Institute, WRO Biennale 2019
Thanks WRO for the fantastic opening week of the HUMAN ASPECT, Media Art Biennale WRO 2019 .
In the format of a performative installation visitors could spend intimate moments with the swarm.
Through the setting in a completely dark space humans got soaked into the swirling light pool of robotic creatures. Taking off their shoes and being very careful visitors made first contact with this new species, that shares motion and behaviors, positions in space and a changing need for closeness and distance as a mutual language. Sometimes scared to be run over by a storm of giant humans, sometimes angry about this lack of space, but most often friendly, playful and totally curious about the humans.
Interacting, meditating, playing rough and dancing smoothly – we received a lot of great feedback about the man-machine bonding time of the people of Wroclaw and our Empathy Swarm. We got especially touched by a young boy who came repeatedly, feeling responsible for the robots and talking about nothing else to his mom until they came back.
It was great to explore and experiment at Grotowski Institute in the center of Wroclaw’s lovely old town! We enjoyed being part of the multitude of fantastic art, events and performances all over the city, meeting old and new friends and celebrating the 30th anniversary of WRO!
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through
the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
Swarming for 42 hours at Meta Marathon!
Our Empathy Robots and us had a fantastic time at Meta Marathon 2019 – Robotics at NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf last weekend!
Visitors could get into the role of swarm robots to experience being part of an emergent system. In this playful workshop they could learn the rules and parameters that are the foundations of emotional swarm behavior. From this understanding they afterwards could generate and design their own behaviors for the robots in real-time with a custom-made ‘swarm behavior synthesizer’. Thinking about 7 different emotions – happy – sad – neutral – angry – surprised – afraid – disgusted – the behaviors they generated will become part of the data set for the robots emotional responses.
We had a lot of interest, great discussions and nice feedback with and from visitors while exhibiting the Swarm at the IMPAKT zone of the festival.
During all the 42-hours and during our presentation and talk on Sunday with Klaas Werner from medienwerk.nrw and So Kanno we represented the facet of non-humanoid robots of the festivals theme of non-stop living, working, coexisting and cooperating with robots and introduced the idea of movement as means of a mutual language of man and machine based on Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel’s 1944 Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior.
We want to thank medienwerk.nrw and Klaas Werner for inviting us to talk about the project, its backgrounds, the future of robotic empathy and the role that swarm intelligence plays.
Also thanks to IMPAKT who hosted Empathy Swarm in the IMPAKT Zone at the festival.
META Marathon 2019 – Presentation & Talk @ NRW-Forum Düsseldorf with medienwerk.nrw
Empathy Swarm meets Sophia and Pepper – almost. We are looking forward to discuss how our non-anthropomorphic robot swarm can produce a feeling of Empathy with some humanoid robots in the audience at the festival Meta Marathon 2019 – Robotics.
42 hours non-stop living and working with robots, coexisting and cooperating, celebrating and drinking, loving and laughing: The META Marathon 2019 from March 15-17, 2019 is dedicated to the topic of robotics and transforms the NRW-Forum into a real laboratory for a whole weekend.
Robot Swarm – Presentation & Talk
(with the Office medienwerk.nrw) / with:
Katrin Hochschuh, Adam Donovan, So Kanno.
Moderation: Klaas Werner
WRO 2019 – Media Art Biennale HUMAN ASPECT with Empathy Swarm
We are happy to be part of the Media Art Biennale WRO 2019 in Wroclaw and to celebrate their 30th anniversary together with them and Empathy Swarm!
From mid-May Empathy Swarm will be part of Poland’s largest show of international contemporary art and examine the HUMAN ASPECT from a post-technological perspective.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through
the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
DEX workshop in Bangkok – 9 fantastic days with students!
From learning the basics of programming Arduino and soldering distance sensors, servo motors and RGB-Leds to the micro-controller to developing a kinematic system that can react to the sensor input and is actuated by the motors. – It was a very busy week for the INDA design and architecture students – With a beautiful outcome and the good feeling that some more students are now enabled to become makers and not consumers of technology!
We are also proud that the results of the workshop were part of the Bangkok Design Week!
Thanks to the DEX team! Especially Hadin Charbel! We had a great time!
Impressions of Empathy Swarm at Machines are not alone, device_art, MSU Zagreb
Emotional swarm robots of Empathy Swarm interact with the guests of Zagreb’s Museum of Contemporary Art and proof that Machines are not alone.
The robots and us experienced exciting days: from the robot’s first contact to strangers at the opening on Tuesday to a vivid discussion on ‘Autonomous relations: actions, reactions & tangled sovereign systems’ with artists Luiz Zanotello and Ralf Becker on Thursday and our final goodbye to the robots on Friday, who will now stay till 3. February 2019 all by themselves. Crazy to see the little ones grow up and become independent 🙂
We also want to thank KONTEJNER again for their hospitality and precious help setting up! We always feel very welcome in Zagreb and like part of the big Kontejner famiiy! ♥
Empathy Swarm will be at Device Art – Machines are not alone from 18. December 2018 – 3. February 2019.
(pictures © Kontejner, Sanjin Kastelan, Dragan Matić / HANZA MEDIA, Hochschuh&Donovan)
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
device_art OPENING tomorrow 18. December 2018, 19:00
A little preview on our shiny swarm robots! And a warm invitation to tomorrows opening!
@ Museum of Contemporary Art, Avenija Dubrovnik 17, Zagreb – 19:00!
Empathy Swarm – setting up for Device Art – MACHINES ARE NOT ALONE – at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb
It is fantastic to be back in Zagreb! After our EMAP/EMARE residency with Kontejner this summer, we are now presenting Empathy Swarm at Device Art – Machines are not alone!
“Everywhere it is machines and machines are not alone.” (curator ZHANG Ga)
The major exhibition concept fits perfectly to a swarm of empathetic robots that are waiting to interact with the visitors swarming through the exhibition.
At the moment still busy setting up and fine tuning our work to the space of the museum, but looking forward to a fantastic opening @ Museum of Contemporary Art, Avenija Dubrovnik 17, Zagreb – 19:00!
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
Warming up for Device Art with Psychophysics Machines in Split
As a warm-up for the Device Art festival of Kontejner in Zagreb, we took 3 of our psychophysics machines on a road trip to Split. The two Megatautophones joined Dr. Doppler and us for a nice performance at MKC Split – Multimedijalni kulturni centar . After the performance in a short talk, moderated by Klara Petrović from Kontejner, we introduced our Empahty Swarm and invited everybody to the opening at the Musuem of Contemporary Art – MSU Zagreb on 18th of December.
(pictures © MKC Split / Platforma 9,81)
A world without us – Impressions of Empathy Swarm at Impakt
An intense week setting up Empathy Swarm for the very first time, with a great outcome 🙂
The swarm is keeping the memories of what it means to be human and its interpretation of human feelings and social behaviours, alive in – A world without us.
After a fantastic opening on Friday, we joined a panel discussion on Saturday with the other EMAP/EMARE artists Taavi Suisalu, Anna Dumitriu and Alex May, discussing how our works take part in a future scenario that we try to avoid.
Thanks IMPAKT for hospitality, support and intriguing ideas!
(pictures © Impakt Foundation, Pieter Kers)
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
Empathy Swarm at IMPAKT from 24 November 2018
Only a week and then the first of the EMAP/EMARE group shows starts for us.
We are happy to be part of ‘A world without us’ at Impakt, Utrecht, Netherlands.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
Curious Tautophone on Australia tour – next stop: ROCKHAMPTON ART GALLERY: 13 October – 2 December, 2018
Soon it is the fifth time that Curious Tautophone shows. This time in Rockhampton, Central Queensland at the Rockhampton Art Gallery.
Opening event: Saturday, 13 October 2018 | 06:00 PM to 08:00 PM
And who wouldn’t want to go after such a nice introduction at Australia’s “WIN News” and “9News Central Queensland” both featuring the Curious Tautophone.
“It’s the sights and sounds of a whole new world. – A world of mesmerizing modern media art.”
– reporter Alexandra Cullen at Australia’s “9News Central Queensland”
Making of: Dissection of the robots
We just wanted to share some more impressions of the scale of this state of the project: 10 robots – that’s a lot of parts!!! And even some of the SMD parts are still in boxes as they would just get lost with a size of half a millimeter x a millimeter!!
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.
Open-Studio swarming with our guests
Some impressions of a busy night, full of emotions, enjoying the robots and explaining the backgrounds to our guests.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.