Category Archives: Empathy Swarm
Empathy Swarm TELEHABITATS
Connect with the Empathy Swarm robots and have a peak live into the swarm’s habitat at the current »BioMedia« exhibition at ZKM Karlsruhe. See visitors interact with the swarm and interact with them through the swarm.
Follow this link to see the swarm as part of the online version of BioMedia. Here you can also discover other online artworks and be guided through the exhbition by an AI called bMEDIA. Or visit the artwork directly.
The swarm is online every Friday – Sunday, 1 p.m. – 6 p.m. CET / CEST
The online version Telehabitats enables visitors to connect virtually with one of the robots in the physical space from home and thus become part of the swarm. The movement of the cursor across the screen sets the path for the movement and it is possible to rotate the robot as well as to increase and decrease the distance to the rest of the swarm. The swarm reacts to the behavior of the connected robot as well as to visitors entering the habitat in the exhibition space at the ZKM.
Funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media.
The work is developed in the framework of the “Intelligent Museum Residency” at ZKM and Deutsches Museum.
The new FOC motor control PCBs are kindly assembled by BTG Elektronik and produced by Eurocircuits.
konS workshops with Empathy Swarm Pop-Up version
A successful trip to our lovely konS partners in Slovenia in April and May! Engaging Electrical Engineering and Computer Science students at the University of Maribor to further develop the next iteration of our Empathy Swarm robot tracking system with FPGA, giving workshops and presenting the swarm in Ljublijana and at XCenter in Novo Gorica to art students about digital storytelling and color theory and all that with our quick to install pop-up version of the swarm.
Looking forward to our next stay and future developments that will arise from this!
The project is developed within the framework of konS ≡ Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art.
BioMedia exhibition at ZKM
We are very proud to announce that our Empathy Swarm is taking part in the »BioMedia« exhibition at ZKM Karlsruhe!
Empathy Swarm just fits in perfectly into »BioMedia – The Age of Media with Life-like Behavior«
Who or what defines on what is alive and what is intelligent? Can artificial forms of life be empathetic? How does cooperation of human beings and artificial agents look like? What ethical questions arise? The exhibition »BioMedia« invites visitors to learn about and discuss possible forms of cohabitation between organic and artificial forms of life.
from Biomedia webpage
Dates: Sat, 04.12.2021 – Sun, 28.08.2022
We developed a new generation of robots for this exhibition with more dynamic movements and 2 days battery life! We are very thankful to our sponsors BTG Elektronik and Eurocircuits for their support!
Thanks also to the Intelligent Musem Residency at ZKM where we worked on the intelligence of our lifeform!
Our swarm is looking forward to your visit!
Photo credits: Keyvisual from exhibition page © Katrin Hochschuh und Adam Donovan, Visual: The Rodina
Funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media.
The work is developed in the framework of the “Intelligent Museum Residency” at ZKM and Deutsches Museum.
The new FOC motor control PCBs are kindly assembled by BTG Elektronik and produced by Eurocircuits.
BTG Elektronik and Eurocircuits: Great sponsors for new Empathy Swarm robots
The new generation of our Empathy Swarm robots is running with FOC motor control! Together with Richard Unger we developed the Whisper boards to create a more dynamic moving robot with much lower power consumption, going from 3 1/2 h to 2 days of runtime!
100 robots means 300 wheels, means 300 tiny FOC boards of 2 x 3 cm. So we are very grateful to our sponsor BTG Elektronik to do the assembly of more than 20.000 SMD parts for us! We also appreciate the support from Eurocircuits to supply the PCBs! In such a difficult year with the global chip crisis, it is fantastic to be able to count on the professional support of our sponsors! Thanks a lot to BTG Elektronik and Eurocircuits!
Also thanks a lot to Richard Unger for his brilliant designs and knowledge exchange! It’s great to meet new friends with the same passion and see the results of this kind of inspired fruitful collaboration!
The new FOC motor control PCBs are kindly assembled by BTG Elektronik and produced by Eurocircuits.
27th MFRU International Festival of Computer Arts
As part of our kons project “Empathy Swarm Orchestra – Cybernetic Intimacy” we presented a video of Empathy Swarm in the 27th MFRU International Festival of Computer Arts in Maribor, Slovenia. From 8th till 26th October, videos of artworks in shop windows all over the city were creating a Covid conform exhibition.
Photo credits: Mitja Lorenčič.
The project is developed within the framework of konS ≡ Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art.
Deutsches Museum Nürnberg – Opening with Empathy Swarm Show
Our Empathy Swarm robots were part of the one hour opening ceromony of Deutsches Museum Nürnberg / the Future Museum last Friday!
The first act of state for our swarm, we are so proud of them! 🙂 In a new production in collaboration with ballet dancer Emily Fernandez we prepared a new format of interactive dance choreography giving an insight into the future of human machine relationships.
Here you can see the performance in the live stream of the opening ceremony.
Photo credits: Deutsches Museum/Thomas Langer
Ars Electronica EMAP Garden with Empathy Swarm Telehabitats
The final crescendo of EMAP / EMARE and we are proud to be part of it! We are also very happy about all of the good things that came (and are still coming) out of our initial residency with Kontejner and the whole EMAP network. With good memories of the latest pandemic adapted online versions of Empathy Swarm first developped as part of Impakt’s A world without us revisited and Cyborg Futures, then evolved into Telehabitats for Werkleitz’s move to… festival this year, now being part of the Ars Electronica EMAP Garden!
Join us in the EMAP garden on Sunday, 12. September, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM !
We are looking forward and want to thank Werkleitz and everyone for the wonderfull time we had with EMAP / EMARE !
Telehabitats is supported by Stipendienprogramm NRW für Künstler*innen.
ZKM’s LIVESTREAM: Developing Empathy Swarm – Reward and Punish
Check out ZKM’s LIVESTREAM on the 4th August at 7 p.m. to learn more about our Intelligent Museum Residency at Hertz-Lab and the development of Empathy Swarm – Reward and Punish – we are creating in our “Mad Scientist Lab” 😉
Funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).
Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Goverrnment Commisioner for Culture and Media).
The work is developed in the framework of the “Intelligent Museum Residency” at ZKM and Deutsches Museum.
ZKM – Intelligent Museum Residency
We are glad to be part of ZKM’s Intelligent Museum Project! During our residency this summer at Hertz-Lab, we will develop a Reinforcement Learning Algorithm to enable the audience to collectively teach the swarm new behaviours through Rewarding or Punishing their actions in certain states!
In September we will present the results and devise learning experiments in collaboration with Deutsches Museum in Munich / Nuremberg. Looking forward to exiting next steps for our swarm!!
Funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).
Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Goverrnment Commisioner for Culture and Media).
The work is developed in the framework of the “Intelligent Museum Residency” at ZKM and Deutsches Museum.
Impressions of Telehabitats @ Werkleitz Festival …move to
We enjoyed 3 days of Werkleitz Festival 2021 – move to… bodydata spheres with Empathy Swarm! Feeling connected through the Telehabitats interface which enabled visitors in Halle to interact through the swarm with us at home.
Thanks to werkleitz for this great collaboration with a fantatstic team on the other side! We hope to get another chance to meet up with everyone from EMAP / EMARE again live!
Thanks to the stipend program for artists of North Rhine-Westphalia to make Telehabitats possible!
The project is supported by Stipendienprogramm NRW für Künstler*innen.
Directional speaker swarm with konS
We are happy to be selected by konS – Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art – to develop a new version of our project Empathy Swarm and to evolve the concept of distances through directional accoustics!
Looking forward to a fruitfull collaboration with Slowenian specialists from different fields from electronics design to choreography!
The project is developed within the framework of konS ≡ Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art.
The project is supported by Stipendienprogramm NRW für Künstler*innen.
Move to… Empathy Swarm – Telehabitats @ Werkleitz Festival 2021
We are happy to be part of the grand finale of EMAP/EMARE at werkleitz with our Empathy Swarm!
Due to the Covid pandemic, the final group show with all the artists could not happen as a great meet-up, so we are happy to have Empathy Swarm – Telehabitats ready to be online during the festival dates.
Werkleitz Festival 2021 – move to… bodydata spheres will take place the following weekend! Have a look at the fantastic program!
Empathy Swarm will be inhabiting their Telehabitats:
Friday 02.07.21 18:00 – 21:30
Saturday 03.07.21 19:30 – 23:00
Sunday 04.07.21 13:00 – 16:30
Come online or see the hybrid installation at Halle!
Thanks to werkleitz for this great collaboration! And it is great to be part of EMAP / EMARE!
Also thanks to the stipend program for artists of North Rhine-Westphalia to make Telehabitats possible!
The project is supported by Stipendienprogramm NRW für Künstler*innen as part of “Telehabitats”.
Telehabitats – Empathy Swarm
Telerobotics as a form of social interaction
Our interactive online platform as answer to the Covid pandemic is online! Wait for updates when our robots are online for you!
As designers and inventors of participatory robot projects in which the relationship between man and machine(s) is researched, the interactive component and contact with other people play a major role. In times of self-isolation and social distance, direct contact takes place only rarely, if at all. We investigate online interaction which digitally links physical spaces, people and our Empathy Swarm. Other robots will soon inhabit the Telehabitats too 🙂
Check out our Telehabitats in which you can collectively experience a different physical space through the robotic avatars.
Thanks for support from the stipend program for artists of North Rhine-Westphalia!
The project is supported by Stipendienprogramm NRW für Künstler*innen as part of “Telehabitats”.
Sternstunde Kunst: How Artificial Intelligence and Robotics are revolutionizing the Arts
Empathy Swarm gets featured in the German speaking culture magazine of SRF Kultur
Sternstunde Kunst: Wie künstliche Intelligenz und Robotik die Kunst revolutionieren
This fantastic movie by Frauke Schlieckau from BOTTEGA BERLIN gives an insight into art and artificial intelligence and we are proud to be part of it with our swarm 🙂
Thanks to Frauke and her nice film crew!
And of course thanks to Stiftung Kunstfonds for their gracious support!
Cyborg Futures – Performance Documentation
Documentation of the live performance Empathy Swarm Remote Memory – Telerobotics for Social Interaction as a Symbiotic Reminiscence of Human-Machine Cohabitation – (click on ‘Watch Performance’) as part of IMPAKT’s online exhibition Cyborg Futures – Who doesn’t want to live forever? While the exhibition is still online, you should check it out!
The interactions of the swarm were generating a live sound track, which the audience could influence, so don’t forget to switch on the sound!
The project is supported by Stipendienprogramm NRW für Künstler*innen as part of “Telehabitats”.
Cyborg Futures – Empathy Swarm Remote Memory starting from 17 Dec 2020
– Telerobotics for Social Interaction as a Symbiotic Reminiscence of Human-Machine Cohabitation –
is part of IMPAKT’s online exhibition Cyborg Futures – Who doesn’t want to live forever? which officially launched yesterday night with an opening lecture by Stelarc, starting from 20:30. Afterwards the swarm that is living with us and is missing human interaction was performing live for and with you!
17 December 2020, 21:30 online performance
The project is supported by Stipendienprogramm NRW für Künstler*innen as part of “Telehabitats”.
Memories of Oslo Night at iArt / HEK
Last weekend our swarm robots had a great experience at OSLO NIGHT Basel at iArt / HEK – Haus der Elektronischen Künste .
Over 400 guests would come and explore the swarm’s habitat and habits. Kids and adults coming back to revisit the swarm and feel the curiousity and empathy of this different kind of lifeform!
Thanks to our hosts for a great night!
Looking forward to what comes out of the documentary “Tod des Genies? AI und die Zukunft der Kunst” of BOTTEGA BERLIN !
And thanks to Stiftung Kunstfonds for their gracious support!
Empathy Swarm @ iArt / HEK – Interact with the swarm at Oslo night Basel – 26th September 2020
Empathy Swarm as a performative installation. Come and interact with the swarm this Saturday during OSLO NIGHT Basel
The little creatures are curious to meet you and to inhabit a fantastic space at iArt !
Thanks to HEK – Haus der Elektronischen Künste for the invatation!
Looking forward to an exiting night ahead!
Saturday , 26th September, 4 p.m. – 2 a.m
iArt, Freilager-Platz 3, 4142 Münchenstein
Photo credits: Empathy Swarm at WRO 2019 Biennale / HUMAN ASPECT, Wroclaw, Poland, by Natalia Kabanow
Remote Interaction with Empathy Swarm Robots to be memorised in Impakt’s A WORLD WITHOUT US REVISITED
In times of self-isolation and social distancing, unfortunately you can’t meet the robots in physical space, but we found a platform, called “twitch.tv” which is widely used among gamers to view and engage with their online community. This platform enables our robots to perform for you and even – although with a bit more work – to receive your input.
Empathy Swarm Remote Memory is a vessel for your memory in a possible ‘World without us’ and is part of Impakt’s online exhibition ‘A WORLD WITHOUT US REVISITED’ .
The next interactive live streams of Empathy Swarm Remote Memory on twitch.tv will be on:
Friday 28th August, 6 – 9 p.m. and
Saturday 29th August, 6 – 9 p.m.