ARTificial Autonome Schilderrobot by Titus Ebbecke

ARTificial Autonome Schilderrobot by Titus Ebbecke is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award in Brons in Robotica, Automaten en Automatisering Ontwerp Competition Category.

BronsRobotica· 2020

ARTificial Autonome Schilderrobot

by Titus Ebbecke

Client: University of Applied Sciences Wuerzburg-Schweinfurt

A' Design Award in Brons Winner in Robotica Category

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Verified Award Winner

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The Design

About ARTificial Autonome Schilderrobot

ARTificial is een autonome schilderrobot die kunst creëert met vrijwel geen menselijke inbreng. Een generative adversarial network genereert een nieuw portret, en een innovatief algoritme zet de digitale afbeelding om in coördinaten. Vervolgens schildert een industriële robot het portret op canvas met acrylverf. Nadat twee knoppen zijn ingedrukt, selecteert de machine een willekeurig motief, neemt verf op, reinigt het penseel en werkt door tot het kunstwerk voltooid is. Een fundering van hout, beton en staal zorgt voor een veilige werking. De installatie stelt de vraag of het creëren van kunst uitsluitend is voorbehouden aan intelligente wezens.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award in Brons

ARTificial Autonome Schilderrobot is winnaar van de A' Design Award in Brons, een hoogst prestigieuze erkenning die wordt toegekend aan uitstekende ontwerpen die zich onderscheiden door creativiteit, vindingrijkheid en scherpzinnigheid. Winnaars in Brons zijn ruimschoots vaardige en opvallend creatieve artefacten die de grote ervaring, verbeelding en het vernuft van hun ontwerpers bevestigen. ARTificial Autonome Schilderrobot wordt verwacht een hooggewaardeerd, bewonderd en gekoesterd object te zijn dat opmerkelijk professioneel en innovatief is. Dit ontwerp dat de A' Design Award in Brons heeft gewonnen, verwerkt de beste praktijken in kunst, wetenschap, ontwerp en technologie en is uitstekend door zijn aandacht voor detail. ARTificial Autonome Schilderrobot bevredigt schitterend behoeften, raakt verlangens, charmeert gevoelens en spreekt de nieuwsgierigheid aan.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: This robot is among the first fully autonomous machines which create art with barely any human authorship. Upon starting the system, the installation generates a completely new portrait with artificial intelligence. A novel algorithm converts the digital AI art into coordinates and the robot then paints it on canvas with acrylic. The sculpture works without human supervision and challenges the belief of art creation as a property of human or artificial intelligence.
Dimensions & Packaging: Dimensions: 3000 X 2000 X 1500mm
Weight: 450kg
Tags: artificial intelligence, ai, generative art, robot, industrial robot, algorithmic, software engineering, installation, robot, gan, generative adversarial network
Production Technology: The images are created with a generative adversarial network. The algorithm is written in Python with OpenCV and NumPy. The KUKA robot and the computer are connected with an Ethernet connection. The custom made foundation has been created out of wood, concrete, and steel. A novel algorithm has been developed for this project. The robot is capable of painting unlimited images without human supervision.
Design Challenge: This project required contacting a robot manufacturer, getting funds, transporting the robot and installing its numerous control interfaces. A foundation needed to be designed and constructed, to ensure the safe operation of this dangerous piece of industrial equipment. Finally, the author had to learn how to program a robot, as well as training the artificial Intelligence for multiple days on the most powerful GPU in existence and developing a completely novel algorithm for converting an AI image into coordinates in a safe manner.
Research: This project is based on image synthesis with artificial intelligence and the combination of machine learning with robotics. A novel algorithm and method have been developed, to research whether art-creation can be linked to intelligence and if this sculpture qualifies as an authentic artist. This research has been conducted in cooperation with KUKA and was supervised under the head of corporate research. The algorithmic basis of this image-to-coordinate-translation will be published in 2020.
Inspiration: Intelligence and consciousness seem to be almost exclusive to the human species. Similarly, the creation of art appears to be strongly bound to the intelligence of its author. This exclusivity between art creation and intelligence is so strong, that proving whether machines can be artists, is an essential step towards true artificial intelligence. As Art and intelligence still lack definitions, this project provokes discussions on whether this machine has these attributes.
Project Duration: This bachelor thesis has been created from February 2019 to July 2019. It demonstrated its ability during a two-day exhibition in August 2019, where it painted over 10 hours in front of a hundred visitors.
Operation Flow: The key element of this project is its autonomy. The robot decides what to generate on a random basis and paints as it wishes. This is an attempt to emulate human artists and their creative freedom as much as possible. Two buttons need to be pressed and the robot will start to generate a random image, take paint, clean its brush and will continue to paint until the artwork is finished.