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ArtBots - The Robot Talent Show
douglas repetto writes "Info on the participants in the Second Annual International ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show, to be held in New York this July, is now online. and there's lots of fun geek/tech/art candy. Participants include robots that draw, sculpt, and play musical instruments, as well as many with talents that are a bit harder to pin down."
CHAPTER 1
Loomings.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long
precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing
particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a
little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of
driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I
find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp,
drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily
pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every
funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper
hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me
from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking
people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon
as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly
take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but
knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish
very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with
her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its
extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by
waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of
sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from
Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall,
northward. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around
the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean
reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the
pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some
high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better
seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in
lath and plaster--tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to
desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they
here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but
the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of
yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh
the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they
stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes
and alleys, streets and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet
here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the
needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes.
Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down
in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is
magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his
deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going,
and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all
that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American
desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied
with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation
and water are wedded for ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest,
shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all
the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There
stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a
crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his
cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into
distant woodlands winds a mazy way,
I'm not Seth.
This stuff is cool. I just hope they're considering the effects of too much human like behavior and are working on emotions as well. I don't think we need a real-life Terminator.
"It is essential that justice be done
No, seriously.
Mod this post up if you don't care at all about this article. Hey, it's the closest Slashdot will ever get to a user-moderated story submission bin...
Many dont give a shit about some robot comeptition. Many dont even have jobs to go anywhere like this.
Utter article bullshit
This is how everything started (http://www.terminator3.com/)...
check out the guy that tied 50 vibrating sticks to a coffee can lid description of his robot.. this is like my junior highschool science fair
Individuals become the cause of the whole and at the same time are caused by the whole. Identity is constructed through interaction from contact with others within a collective and through a relationship with a specific environment.
Observations of the ways objects in groups, or singular units, behave relative to their surroundings are a great fascination to me. The works often simulate naturally occurring functions or motions. Despite the fact that each unit within a collective group is constructed to identical specifications, they behave in subtly distinctive ways. Acting upon their limited "free will", these individual mechanisms can choose to orient themselves relative to their surroundings based on various stimuli. Individual mechanisms, which arrange themselves in an organic configuration, can be seen to represent particles in a state of disbursement, an active insect colony, or a crowd of people displacing one another.
Documentation of this activity in real time or as trace evidence of a specific interaction with other elements and environmental stimuli serves as a emphasis of these mechanisms' organic-like behavior.
50 drones consists of 50 individual aluminum and PVC units, which vibrate and interact with each other. This interaction creates spastic unpredictable behavior and a persistent buzzing noise. Each unit is tethered by a 120-inch cord that supplies it with power and limits the units' movement to a confined area. The piece is on a timer that allows it to run continuously for five minutes every hour.
bite my glorious golden ass.
Does anyone know if Oman the robotic artist is competing, i used to be the webmaster for the Oman website but I can't seem to find him registered, can anyone close to the event tell me if oman the robotic artist has registered?
Microsoft IIS is to webserving as KFC is to healthy eating
OR
(b) sex with a mareImagine a beowolf cluster of these!
I want FuckBots.
upn had a dilbert episode where dilbert created a masterpiece--a blue duck--that swept the art world. maybe if this had not been in a cartoon, i'd swoon and drool over art created artificially...
... not that cigarette-smoking-coffee-loving-beret-wearing-ass- holes don't already do that...
----
http://www.hellection.com
We are lowering our standards I think.....
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
I am really sorry to bring this up, but this technology can probably be paired up with something like this for the most realistic (or, possibly good beyond realism) blowjob in the history of mankind...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
So these would be the robots that are the most realistic artists then?
I don't know about you guys, but I think the tribble robot would make a great children's toy, or a dumbed-down (and toughened up) version to entertain your dog :)
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Mr. Rembrandt? I'm guessing it was about 1970.
did anyone else see the happy feet robot and think of the Simpsons episode where Lisa tapdanced with the automated tap shoes? looks like that may be a reality now.
-Look lively. LOOK LIVELY!!! --Mr. Shmallow
to watch out for black people.
They just let them run wild!
Alicia Keyes' Fallin as well as any 12 year old with a desire to be on American Idol, count me in!
Maybe soon they will have robots jamming on tennis rackets while one of them blasts old Beatles tunes.
i'm making a "cell phone ring bot" it will play every anoying cellphone ring and then ask "oh is that me?" just like all the idiots in the elevator that you meet you fricken programed your own ring tone, dont ask me if it's you!
...that can filter my inbox. That's real art, man.
So this proves that art is a bunch of crap. Now i'll have evidence next time I run into a stupid photo major.
What do you do with a degree in photo? poor coffee the rest of your life thats what
The dorks are taking over. They're everywhere. They're on TV, they're on the radio, they're all over the internet, hell they're even in movies now! (Matrix anyone?)
..wait, most of them will never breed...Okay, so maybe they won't overrun the world, but they'll make life hell for the rest of us!
THE DORKS ARE GOING TO OVERRUN THE WORLD!
all blue-eyed and everything i'll bet,sheesh, i'm glad that my nieces are smart enough not to breed with you inbred, blue-eyed, paint sniffing goobers.
There's a band called Captured by Robots that's pretty cool. The guy built a bunch of robots (i.e. the 12 string autoharp named "GTRBOT666") for his bandmates as he "didn't get along with the human variety" very well.
r ed-by-robots/index.html
The music is eh, but the show itself is rad.
These are some pictures of the robots themselves: http://www.chromatic-fantasy.com/2002-05-04-captu
(Yes, the robots actually play music.. )
-A
-----
show me salvation, and i'll hate it.
At Wageningen University, a competition will be held tomorrow for robots to race through a cornfield.
Here's the site with a small movie showing a robot going.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
I think someone slashdotted the scratch robot, 'cos he aint doin nothin.
Now, slashdotting the scratch robot isn't a big deal, it isn't alive, but what about the skin-robot one? Their inventors claim it's alive. Would we be killing it?
Are we murderers?
Are YOU a murderer?
Murderer!
With our current level of technology robots are incapable of existing in the art world. They may be able to create a useless, uninspired, simple meaningless object, scribble, or splatter, but they are incapable of the the silver tongued chaos, fraud, and illogic involved in passing off such pieces as anything other than what they are: sheer garbage.
Longest. Sentence. Ever.
CE
Oh my...
BR Does that mean Simon Says is going to be the annoying little judge that makes all the other robots cry?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
"We got more gongs than the break-dancing robot that caught on fire."
--Homer, "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)"
for the sony symphonic orchestra. Nothing like metallic musicians on a woodwind.
************** Dan Cunningham
many with talents that are a bit harder to pin down.
You mean like alcoholic, kleptomaniac, robots that are benders of steel?
I know what you mean. How do you classify such a talent?
Dolemite
____________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
I wonder if we've broken the scratch bot yet. You know, like if it's backlogged with seven years of scratching to do from all the /.'ers e-mail. I don't think we ever pointed the slashdot DoS cannon at a musician before ;)
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
Art seems to aim for the impractical, while technology for the practical. Those who think this is NOT art would be correct. Those who think that technology is controlling the creation of these works are correct too. What makes people think that this is art is that there is a revealing aspect to these bots. Take the cover off of a laptop paint the capacitors brown and green and call them trees -- this is not art. Some would call this modern art -- still, not art. To fully understand what these are one needs to understand technology and the control it has over people -- no one understands the ESSENCE of technology we are enframed within technology and any argument defining technology usually begins with "we use it to help us", "technology mearly extends our reach", or it is a "tool", etc. Art in a truer sense is the attempt to get to the essence of things -- in particular to the essence of our being on earth. Technology does not get us any closer to our essence, but further away into a standing reserve used to continue the advance of technology (similar to an oil reserve). The essence of technology reveals is not neutral or just an instrument of human control; it is an autonomous organizing activity within which humans themselves are organized as standing reserves.
-me
I can see it now...
Worlds Most Talented Robot
15 Seconds to Robot Fame
Who Wants to Marry a Robot?
American Robot
to see humor in the phrase... "Participants include robots that draw, sculpt, and play musical instruments, as well as many with talents that are a bit harder to pin down." ????