[spectre] Us & them & them: Robots, Artists and Scientists

[ANAT Communications]

MEDIA RELEASE
Apologies for cross postings

**Us & them & them: Robots, Artists and Scientists**

The Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) is pleased to
announce the  next discussion on the Synapse elist which, throughout
2008, is investigating the  leading-edge of art and science research
collaboration.

The April discussion will concern robotics and artists' engagement with
the field.  As well as surveying contemporary projects, the
conversation will focus on the ramifications of artists working
alongside scientists on robotics, now and into the future.

Discussion Guests;

KIRSTY BOYLE is an artist whose passion for robots has led her to
travel the world, working with like-minded puppeteers, animators and
roboticists. Her work examines robots as subjects of culture with
particular emphasis on how we experience and personalise our
interactions with them. She is currently artist in residence and guest
researcher at the AI Lab, University of Zurich, where she is working on
girlton, a robot combining artificial intelligence with traditional
automata. www.anat.org.au/blog/boyle/

PAUL BROWN is an artist and writer who has specialised in art, science
and technology since the late 1960s. His work has shown at the TATE,
Victoria & Albert and ICA in the UK; ARCO in Spain and the Venice
Biennale as well as being represented in public, corporate and private
collections internationally. He is currently a visiting professor at
the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, University of
Sussex, where he is working on a project to evolve robots that can
draw. www.paul-brown.com

SHUHEI MIYASHITA is a scientist who grew up in Tokyo and Tsukuba
Science City, Japan. He holds a Bachelor degree in Electrical and
Electronic Engineering and a Masters in Computational Intelligence and
Systems Science. He is currently a Ph.D candidate at the Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, University of Zurich, where he is working on
self-assembly robots in order to explore the extent to which artifacts
can be used to represent life-like behaviours. http://shuhei.net/

LEONEL MOURA is an artist who works with robotics and artificial
intelligence in order to produce "Artificial Creativity". He created
his first swarm of autonomous painting robots - able to produce
original artworks based on emergent behaviour - in 2003. Since then he
has produced increasingly autonomous and sophisticated 'artbots',
including RAP (Robotic Action Painter, 2006) created for permanent
exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
www.leonelmoura.com/

DOUGLAS REPETTO is an artist and teacher. His work, including
sculpture, installation, performance, recordings, and software is
presented internationally. He is the founder of a number of
art/community-oriented groups including dorkbot: people doing strange
things with electricity, ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show, organism:
making art with living systems, and the music-dsp mailing list and
website. He is currently Director of Research at the Columbia
University Computer Music Center, NYC. http://artbots.org/

MARI VELONAKI is a media artist who engages spectators with digital and
robotic 'characters' in interplays stimulated by sensory-triggered
interfaces (speech 1995, touch 1997, breath 1998, electrostatic charge
2000, vision system 2000, light 2003, robotics 2003). With Dr David
Rye, she co-founded the Centre for Social Robotics at the Australian
Centre for Field Robotics, University of Sydney and is currently an
Australia Council Visual Arts Fellow.
www.synapse.net.au/people/mari_velonaki

 To subscribe to the elist visit: www.synapse.net.au and select
'Discussion List'

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ANAT is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia
Council for the Arts http://www.ozco.gov.au its arts funding and
advisory body, by the South Australian Government through Arts SA
http://www.arts.sa.gov.au and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an
initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.