Category Archives: Studio

Projection, Residency, Saturn 3, Software |

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Face-Projection Experiments: Preparing for Izlog Festival – Saturn3

Preparing for Izlog Festival  and our Saturn3 Performance on 2nd May, 10:00 pm, we are experimenting with face-tracking and real time projections onto our faces.

Yesterday night we made some first tests, using infra-red light and a filter for visible light on the camera, to track the face and its landmarks in real time, while the projection was projected back onto the face, being visible for the human eye, but not for the special camera.

It’s a first idea of how it will be when the robots take over and transform Łukasz Szałankiewicz aka Zenial into one of them during the Saturn3 performance, synthesizing sound depending on his emotions.

Interview_Croatian_National_Radio_Katarina_Kolega_2 Interview_Croatian_National_Radio_Katarina_Kolega_0 megatautophone_ready_to_go megatautophone_ready_to_go2 Interview_Croatian_National_Radio_Katarina_Kolega_1 Interview_Croatian_National_Radio_Katarina_Kolega_3
Interview, Psychophysics Machines, Robotics, Saturn 3, Software, Sound |

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Interview for Croatian National Radio

This evening we had a nice distraction from working: Katarina Kolega from the Croatian National Radio came to talk with us about our work, robotics in music and more.

She came at the perfect moment to see the first Mega Tautophone ready to go, could smile into the camera and let some emotions synthesize first sound experiments.

We don’t know when the interview will be broadcasted, but sure we will let you know 🙂

 

          

The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.

 

Empathy Swarm, Prototype, Robot Psychology, Software, Studio |

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Robertinas first steps towards Empahty!

Currently we are working on making our Robot Swarm  perceive humans. The vision sense of our robot is a camera; the robot sees its environment, but that alone is not enough. The robot needs to learn to differentiate a bit more.

Previously we used Python and could already detect emotions, but to be more flexible and have the possibility to have more control, we are porting our coding environment to c++.

With the goal to respond to human emotions the primary goal is to detect faces. In order to teach Robertina to identify a human face, we use the computer vision and machine learning libraries OpenCV and dllib.

And see what she can already perceive: That’s Adam and me and she can identify two heads and amazingly also our so called facial landmarks that play a relevant role in her future ability to actually perceive emotions!

 

Event, Performance, Prototype, Psychophysics Machines, Robot Anatomy, Saturn 3 |

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Saturn3: Performance on 2nd May 2018 at IZLOG SUVRE MENOG ZVUKA – Showroom of Contemporary Sound, Zagreb

Saturn3 meets Empathy Swarm

in collaboration with KONEJNER, Zagreb

As kick-off of our EMAP/EMARE Residency in Croatia this summer, we spent 3 weeks working on Emotion Recognition, Psychophysics Machines and Sound Generation.

Łukasz Szałankiewicz aka Zenial joins us to perform at Izlog Festival on the 2nd of May. He will be the first one to use our emotion system prototype live on stage as part  of our Saturn3 setup.

 

          

The work is coproduced at Kontejner within the framework of EMAP / EMARE and co-funded by Creative Europe.

 

Empathy Swarm, Inspiration, Prototype, Reference, Robot Psychology |

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It is so human this tiny little triangle: First ideas towards robotic empathy behavior!

Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel’s analog overhead projector animations were already used in 1944 to demonstrate how easy it is for the observer’s brain to associate emotional attachment to inanimate objects and how our human brain is hard wired for compassion.

Empathy Swarm will transplant this from a digital to a physical environment by creating a swarm of robots that as a whole can adapt its behavior and interacts with the observer’s emotional feedback.