ARTificial 自主繪畫機械人 by Titus Ebbecke is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award 銅獎 in 機械人設計 Competition Category.

銅機械人· 2020

ARTificial 自主繪畫機械人

by Titus Ebbecke

Client: University of Applied Sciences Wuerzburg-Schweinfurt

A' Design Award 銅獎 Winner in 機械人 Category

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The Design

About ARTificial 自主繪畫機械人

ARTificial係一款自主繪畫機械人，創作藝術幾乎唔需要人類參與。生成對抗網絡（GAN）產生一幅新嘅肖像，然後一套新穎嘅演算法將數碼圖像轉換成座標數據。之後，工業機械人就用壓克力顏料喺畫布上繪製呢幅肖像。只要按低兩個掣，機器就會隨機選擇一個主題，蘸取顏料、清潔畫筆，並持續工作直至作品完成為止。木材、混凝土同鋼材構成嘅底座，確保操作過程安全穩定。呢件裝置作品質疑緊，藝術創作係咪只屬於有智慧嘅生命體所獨有。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 銅獎

ARTificial 自主繪畫機械人是 A' Design Award 銅獎得主，這是授予以創造力、獨創性和敏銳見長的傑出設計的極具聲望的認可。銅獎得主是技藝嫻熟、創意驚人的作品，印證了其設計師豐富的經驗、想像力與機智。預計ARTificial 自主繪畫機械人將成為一件備受推崇、令人欽佩且被珍愛的物品，兼具顯著的專業性與創新性。這件贏得 A' Design Award 銅獎的設計融入藝術、科學、設計和技術領域的最佳實踐，並因注重細節而出類拔萃。ARTificial 自主繪畫機械人出色地滿足需求，觸動渴望，迷住情感，並吸引好奇心。

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.