Over the course of the Spring 2016 semester I have been creating open source robotic control software for the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry’s Universal Robots UR5 with Madeline Gannon. This software is being created to enable artists like myself to create Interactive Art and Performance Art with the UR5.   While thinking about performance art created with robotic arms I referenced the following works:

Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty

STELARC PROPEL

Aurélien Bory Sans Objet

Harald Haraldsson Moments

 

Spend 7 weeks making a tool, so you can then spend 3 weeks making Art.

 

The UR5

The UR5 is a 6 axis robotic arm designed for small industrial and research projects.  It has a reach of 1 meter and can carry a payload of 5 kilograms.  The UR5 is a beautiful piece of hardware that can move in beautiful elegant ways.  The robotic arm possess the ability to perform very precise reproducible movements.  The work exploits the ability to create choreographed movements and interactions between a human and a robotic arm.  

AUTOMATIC, AUTOMAGIC, AUTOMATION is a series of human-robotic and object-robotic performances.  The series is an exploration into human-robot interaction.  The series will examine and reinterpret human interactions, human gestures, human-robot interactions, and human-object interactions.  The series is a commentary on the evolving future of robotics, the continuous restructuring of our social system, the future of human-robot interactions, and future robotic automation.

Human body language is a very complex subject.  Science is in the process of quantifying and documenting how humans interact and communicate with unique body languages.  Many gestures do not translate from one culture to another.  We begin with examining a common human greetings across most cultures: The Wave.   

The wave can be used as a greeting, to say goodbye, or a simple act of acknowledgment.

The Regal Wave is an elevated form of the wave.  It is something unto itself a formal yet hollow gesture.  Something performed by someone of great stature but performed in a highly robotic way.  

THE WAVE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

Using many hours of source video the robot arm will be trained to reproduce the motion of Queen Elizabeth’s wave.  The robot arm will feature an end effector modeled to represent the hand of the aging monarch.

The Selfie Stick

The Butt Slap