senseless drawing bot

“The Senseless Drawing Robot is a self-propelling device on a skateboard that sprays abstract linework on a stretch of wall using a double pendulum. extrapolating the dynamism of modern graffiti forms, the robot takes advantage of the chaotic gestures of the swinging pendulum to create erratic yet organic paint strokes. Featuring a motorized skateboard base, the construction consists of a single arm equipped with a rotary encoder attached to the fulcrum of the pendulum. as the robot moves from side to side, the swinging motion of the arm is amplified through the physics of inertia which is delineated by a quick release of paint from the spray can. the resulting collage of lines is a complex illustration derived from a simple operation.”

The title Senseless Drawing Robot seems to be a critique of the value of graffiti or perhaps of its own contributions to graffiti. The piece feel to me less of a critique and more of taking the movement that is very human and making a mechanical assembly that owns the same movement. Its robotic arm is very successful in capturing the movement and form of graffiti drawing. The curves of graffiti seemed to be connected to the structure of a human arm, but this mechanic makes it feel owned by the robot as well. From a distance it is nearly indistinguishable from what might be on the side of bridge or back ally. While it captures the fundamental stroke of graffiti it lacks any of the personalization or distinctiveness that gives some graffiti value. I also feel that graffiti losses its value when constructed artificially in an art gallery such as this. The robot should be out side doing real graffiti next to other human artists to see how it really holds up.

My Little Piece of Privacy is a robotic art piece where a small curtain is maneuvered in a window to only block those outside form looking in. Cameras with body tracking detect people and motor drives a belt that has the curtain on it. I believe the strength of this piece is the fact that security and privacy are things that humans and robots mutually understand. Computer systems are designed from the ground up to be secure in regards to attempts to steal data or hijack processes. Security intrusions are one of the biggest threats computers face. The robot helping the human keep his privacy demonstrates a level of relate ability and understanding the robot must have for the human.
However, the problems seems a little forced as one commenter put it “But why you don’t use the large one??.” I wish the person inside was actually more exposed and dependent on the curtain for security. The actually result of a moving curtain is that passersby interacted with it more in a playful way probably decreasing the level of security inside. I think there is a lot of potential for robotic art where a robots try to defend their privacy from viewers.