The Aesthetics Perspective of Robots? On the Exhibition “the big picture” Presented in National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
Authors
CHEN Pei-Yu
Year
2019
Intro
For artworks which take mechanical components like materials, whether through physical equipment or processing programs, synthesized into a complete work of “technological art,” it is empowered with a value of “aesthetics” in terms of the related artistic discourses and the advance of visual presentation.
Image: RobotLAB, the big picture, 2014. (Photo: CHEN Pei-Yu)
For artworks which take mechanical components like materials, whether through physical equipment or processing programs, synthesized into a complete work of “technological art,” it is empowered with a value of “aesthetics” in terms of the related artistic discourses and the advance of visual presentation. It undoubtedly comes from humankind’s sophisticated application of the physical characteristics of mechanical equipment and its fantasized implication of the future. That is to say, the aesthetical sense of mechanical work is from the object itself when it functions as a work of art. Relatively speaking, the artist who creates the mechanical work is the aesthetics maker of the mechanical works; while the aesthetics is sensed when the audience gaze at the mechanical objects.
However, the German art collective “RobotLab” tries to reverse the relationship between subject and object. Through the drawing process of “the big picture” done by industrial robot KUKA, a worth-thinking concept was brought out: does the robot itself obtain an aesthetic perspective of artistic judgment?
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The robots scene in the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, 2007. (Source)
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The robots scene in the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, 2007. (Source)
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The robots scene in the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, 2007. (Source)
First of all, if we look back at the history of mechanical invention, Leonardo da Vinci is undoubtedly recognized as one of the earliest mechanical artists. He drafted machines which surpassed future technology, allowing machines to replace human labor or achieve the tasks which couldn’t be completed by human beings, and reduce the time of human work.
If we would like to explore how mechanical subjects entered the realms of art creation and affected the public, we may start from the stories related to the mechanical imagination appeared after the invention of films in 1895. Since then, special techniques and fictional scenes were applied to express the imagination, and the sci-fi narrative was used for describing the image in mind; in particular, a variety of fantasy films produced by the father of science fiction films, Georges Méliès, since 1896. Among which, although the 1897 film Gugusse and the Automaton has been lost, according to the reasoning of Janne Wass about the context of Méliès’ work, she believed that the director has abandoned the superimposition technique and made the robot itself as an actor at the core of the film. The director had the robots act in the movie, instead of relying on the post-production technique. Mechanical devices no longer belonged to science fiction in the 19th century; for instance, the mechanical clock was part of everyday life.[1] As to the legend of the mysterious robot, writer Brian Selznick has combined his research and imagination of Méliès, representing the protagonist of Gugusse and the Automaton: a mechanical figure that could automatically draw with a robotic arm in his 2007 work, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. After Méliès, films have become the promotional media for mechanical products. For instance, robots in sci-fi films, such as Metropolis, reflected the convenience and the self-value of existence; and the development of mechanical products in society has become complementary conjoined twins. Stories were applied to resonate with the audience; as a consequence, mechanical products became the indispensable part of humankind’s everyday life and the focus in the World’s fair. Nevertheless, there was a group of artists started to replace humans’ painting action with machinery to ponder the aesthetical issues of the relationship among painting, labor, human brain, and mechanical brain.
In 1959, the renowned Swiss sculptor and painter Jean Tinguely reflected on the unconsciousness in painting in American abstraction expressionism through the “Méta-Matic” project, a series of painting machines; he explored the contradiction between the subjectivity of artistic thinking and the imitating techniques.[2] The famous Australian performing artist Stelarc presented his work “Handwriting” in 1982, equipped with a mechanical arm; he tried to write with the third arm to enhance humankind’s ability and speed in writing. The robotic arm then has possessed an automatic independent system of writing that can perform various tasks simultaneously with a human arm. The robotic arm now has an automated, independent writing system that can accomplish different tasks simultaneously than a human arm. From these two works, while the artists were trying to make the mechanical devices draw or write, they tried to bring out the discussion whether mechanical thinking and human thinking possess the independent thinking in the process of art making; even though mechanical software programs are regarded as the implanted thoughts processed by humankind. However, when it comes to the ability of systematic algorithm and the different combination of systematically generated information and images, the speed has outstripped the efficiency of the human brain.
Since 2000, the German art collective “RobotLab” started with the work “aesthetics and power,” initiating a series of changes in the life of KUKA. At that time, KUKA was placed in a cage at the museum, where the visitors could interact with it through microphones; while the monitors equipped on it recorded the audiences’ responses. KUKA was a rather unusual machine and rarely appeared in public. The team seemed to provide KUKA a life experience of a mechanical monster. When it was kept in a zoo-like cage for viewing, it kept the audiences’ behavior through its gaze and the video system and left many interesting daily logs. Like a newborn baby, it can only watch and listen, slowly learning humankind’s languages and their context.
Later, through different projects, the art collective trained KUKA to dance, write letters, play music, get to know politics and artistic theories and compose manifesto, and regarded it as an organic living. With all kinds of art learning, its spirit system gained enhanced and generated the ability to understand and criticize art.[3] The first drawing project of KUKA was “Autoportrait” in 2002. When the audience sat at a specific seat, the facial recognition system would automatically focus the camera within the area of the audience’s face. In this way, the mechanical-arm painter would start to depict the audience. Since the setting of the facial recognition system, KUKA possessed a unique style in painting. However, whenever KUKA finished painting, it would eliminate the works. With this mode of behavior, “RobotLab” would like to explore the relationship between the mechanical arm and the audience that was the interaction between a painter and the painted object. Even though the art making was done by machine, however, it was humankind’s abilities to represent images. Through the “creation” of mechanical arms, the issue of image reproduction and representation was then highlighted. Humankind carries emotion toward the process of image making; the accumulation of time and speed make the creator pay attention to the work. However, the mechanical arm is a rational programming system. For the arms, it was just a matter of completing the tasks. It was not the arm’s job to decide whether to keep the final works or not; just like a production line in the factory, the machines would only follow the order without any emotions.
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A robot who make a skech which is about the movie Le Voyage dans la lune In the movie Hugo, 2011. (Source)
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A robot who make a skech which is about the movie Le Voyage dans la lune In the movie Hugo, 2011. (Source)
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A robot who make a skech which is about the movie Le Voyage dans la lune In the movie Hugo, 2011. (Source)
Stelarc, Handwriting. (Source)
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Stelarc, Handwriting. (Source)
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Stelarc, Handwriting. (Source)
Unlike the real-time depiction of human faces or figure with simple lines in the works “Autoportrait” and “profiler,” the latest project “the big picture” since 2014 could be seen as a painting training from the art collective. KUKA had to non-stop complete a large-scale painting over a period of four months in the museum’s space. The original image was the image taken on the 952nd and 953rd Martian sidereal day on April 10th and 11th, 2015, provided by “Curiosity,” the rover exploring on Mars as a project of America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Viewing the creation process of KUKA from a certain distance, although the images were merely black and white sketches and the content consisted of wasteland and rocks, the visual presentation provided a sense of realism drawing which stayed at the phase of drafting if we regard KUKA as a painting skill applied by human beings. Indeed, the light, gradient colors, and depiction of the figures composed an overall image which can be recognized at a glance by the viewer, though the strokes and lines were not completely refined.
However, when you get closer, you would find a huge difference to regular image composition. We can first assume that the composition of images includes several basic patterns: brush strokes, negative imaging, inkjet printing, digital pixels; while it can be further divided into more categories. For instance, the painting includes watercolor painting, oil painting, and ink painting; the brush strokes are related to the painting skills such as texture, thickness, lines, contour, senses of space, etc. For negative imaging, there are black/white and color images, film speed, and shutter speed; while the processing of films may affect the final presentation. The quality of printing products also relies on color tones and nozzles of the printers. In modern digital technology, the image is composed of pixels, and the resolution affects the final quality of the image. Screens that display the final output of images are also the key to the visual effect.
If we consider the drawing of KUKA as a kind of computer graphics, it applied continuous and chaotic lines to form a figurative object. These lines may remind people of the lines appearing in Software Art or 3D modeling; thus, we may describe the style of KUKA’s brushstrokes as “programming style” for the time being.
Moreover, as a painting mechanical arm, KUKA relies on the information provided by the computer system during the process of image making; in this way, does it have its self-judgment of the style applied? If the impressionist style pays attention to the changing of light and time; the Cubism forms the relationship between the space and perspectives; while the Pointillism emphasized the visual effects of color by stacking images with thick dots. And these skills are mostly derived from the connection between painter’s ever-changing mood and the visual representation; then, what is the mood of KUKA when it makes these images? Painting is based on a limited visual representation of landscape or portrait; however, the images produced by KUKA are from the gaze of the camera which is the Martian scene never witnessed by human’s eyes. Then, do machines have the ability to decide what to depict from an aesthetical point of view? Or, are the images merely the reproductions retrieved by the machines? If the style and quality of paintings come from painters’ mind and emotion; what serves as the foundation of the robot’s painting?
One thing for sure is that humankind has developed a dependence on machines since he invented them. Besides the fact that there are many successful experiments in which rich people restore their souls in robots; everyone is keeping his memory in various devices in modern society, for instance, taking photos with mobile phones, writing and restoring data with computers. We all try to preserve our memories permanently with machines, since machines make possible to store, reproduce and save parts of the souls; while the physical body is comparatively immortal. However, the current development of technology are still trying to empower robots with the ability to make the judgment, and the art collective makes the audience keep thinking on the issue that when KUKA is painting and composing poetry based on the human-written programs, would it choose the part that it finds the most “beautiful”?
At least, under the current development, the machines have surpassed the physical and temporal limits that humankind cannot reach. The Curiosity has traveled to a no-man land and recorded what it sees and transmitted the image back to people on earth. Through the non-stop image-making, KUKA shows its imagination of the beauty on this no-man land. Perhaps in the future, KUKA’s painting will become a specific style, and take its place in art history.
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RobotLAB, Autoportrait, 2002. (Source)
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RobotLAB, Autoportrait, 2002. (Source)
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RobotLAB, Autoportrait, 2002. (Source)
RobotLAB, the big picture, 2014. (Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine arts)
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RobotLAB, the big picture, 2014. (Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine arts)
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RobotLAB, the big picture, 2014. (Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine arts)
RobotLAB, the big picture, 2014. (Photo: CHEN Pei-Yu)
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RobotLAB, the big picture, 2014. (Photo: CHEN Pei-Yu)
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RobotLAB, the big picture, 2014. (Photo: CHEN Pei-Yu)
[1] Janne Wass, “Gugusse and the Automaton”, 2018,3,4. https://scifist.net/2018/03/04/gugusse-and-the-automaton/
[2] Referring to the following link: https://www.tinguely.ch/meta/en/metamatic
[3] For reference, please check the description of “Manifesto” (2008) in “The Humanity beyond Skills On the 2017 Vienna Biennale: Robots. Work. Our Future” by CHEN Pei-Yu. https://www.digiarts.org.tw/DigiArts/DataBasePage/4_109461406545011/Chi
About the author
CHEN Pei-Yu (Doris) graduated from Tainan National University of The Arts. The thesis is combine of digital art and performing arts has become a new form of contemporary digital art and theater performances. Good at art criticism, photography, digital revision and video creation.