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ArtBots - The Robot Talent Show 65

douglas repetto writes "Info on the participants in the Second Annual International ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show, to be held in New York this July, is now online. and there's lots of fun geek/tech/art candy. Participants include robots that draw, sculpt, and play musical instruments, as well as many with talents that are a bit harder to pin down."
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ArtBots - The Robot Talent Show

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  • Yeap... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kshu ( 608394 ) <jNO@SPAMpost.ro> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:15AM (#6121599)
    This is how everything started (http://www.terminator3.com/)...
  • by nervlord1 ( 529523 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:18AM (#6121607) Homepage
    Does anyone know if Oman the robotic artist is competing, i used to be the webmaster for the Oman website but I can't seem to find him registered, can anyone close to the event tell me if oman the robotic artist has registered?
  • Thats a musical instrument? A scratch robot? I don't think so. Maybe if it did something like play a piano, but to scratch a record?

    We are lowering our standards I think.....

    • Re:Scratch Robot? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by big_gibbon ( 530793 )
      Grab yourself a turntable and some vinyl and give it a go - I think you'll be very surprised how difficult it is to play a turntable well. You've got to be improvise and keep in time with a far faster beat than you'll find in any other form of music, and have an excellent understanding - or rather feel - for how a particular sound can be manipulated by combinations of speed of movement and pressure. Contrary to popular belief, a turntablist doesn't just slam down a record and move his/her hand back and fort
      • While I agree with the gist of your comments (ie. a turntablist is a musician), I quibble with the "far faster beat than you'll find in any other form of music" statement. Turntablists generally tend to work in the hip-hop genre, and most hip-hop tends to be about 70-90 BPM, which is nowhere near as fast as death/dark/speed metal or some jazz tracks. Songs to improvise to, such as "Giant Steps" (Coltrane) and "Blues Etude" (Oscar Peterson) are pretty damn quick. Of course there are more, those two are ones
        • Definitely a fair point, and you're right to say that most turntablists work with hip-hop. It popped out because I largely listen to drum and bass, which is certainly over 100bpm, more frequently 120-140 or higher, and there's some very skilled turntable work going on there - so when I think "talented turntablists" I tend to think first of DnB artists, who obviously don't represent the larger part of the spectrum :)

          Still, I listen to a fair bit of metal too (my first love ;), so was a little rash with the
          • yes I think d'n'b runs up about 160-180 nowadays, non? I don't really hear a lot of turntablism (in terms of scratching) when I listen to drum'n'bass though (except for in Hellfish and Producer's amazing track -"Turntable Savage", but that's a lot of DSP fuckery). But that might just be my shite ears. :)
            • Yep, have heard some over 200bpm but you're approaching insanity then ;)

              If you want some decent DnB turntablism, poke around for stuff by DJ Craze, DJ Hype, or DJ Marky. Live sets are generally better for hearing the good stuff, natch ;) Plus One (of the Scratch Perverts) also plays some good DnB and will play around with the turntables a fair bit . . .

              P

      • I'm sitting here trying to guess how many beats per minute you're talking about for a really fast beat, then convert that into megahertz... Well I can't imagine the speed of the beat would be any issue for the robot. Further, you need to to have an understanding of the "feel", but the robot can exactly reproduce preprogrammed combinations of speed and pressure.
        I'd guess it is using your input as a random seed to choose preselected combinations. So I would guess it could be a good player, if the human who
    • You're suffering from a common misconception... Robots play pianos all the time.
    • I agree completely. Scratching vinyl is the new urban equivalent of the mouth harp.

      Imagine the remix: "Boing, boing, wicka, wicka, boing, boing."
  • by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:30AM (#6121634) Journal
    I am really sorry to bring this up, but this technology can probably be paired up with something like this [realdoll.com] for the most realistic (or, possibly good beyond realism) blowjob in the history of mankind...
    • And what happens when WinBJ controlled RealDoll goes into a BJOD? Ouch.

  • So these would be the robots that are the most realistic artists then?
  • Tribblation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by G-funk ( 22712 ) <josh@gfunk007.com> on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:42AM (#6121665) Homepage Journal
    I don't know about you guys, but I think the tribble robot would make a great children's toy, or a dumbed-down (and toughened up) version to entertain your dog :)
  • by Alien Being ( 18488 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:43AM (#6121668)
    Mr. Rembrandt [robotmuseum.com]? I'm guessing it was about 1970.
  • happy feet (Score:5, Informative)

    by tankdilla ( 652987 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:43AM (#6121669) Homepage Journal
    did anyone else see the happy feet robot and think of the Simpsons episode where Lisa tapdanced with the automated tap shoes? looks like that may be a reality now.
  • by Savatte ( 111615 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @02:50AM (#6121685) Homepage Journal
    Alicia Keyes' Fallin as well as any 12 year old with a desire to be on American Idol, count me in!

    Maybe soon they will have robots jamming on tennis rackets while one of them blasts old Beatles tunes.
  • by jabbadabbadoo ( 599681 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:01AM (#6121704)
    ...that can filter my inbox. That's real art, man.
    • ...that can filter my inbox. That's real art, man.

      My filters work just fine for that... I'd rather have a pornbot that goes through and downloads high quality porn... I mean art, and filters out all that low resolution junk.

  • by dragoness ( 220032 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @03:28AM (#6121765)
    There's a band called Captured by Robots [capturedbyrobots.com] that's pretty cool. The guy built a bunch of robots (i.e. the 12 string autoharp named "GTRBOT666") for his bandmates as he "didn't get along with the human variety" very well.

    The music is eh, but the show itself is rad.

    These are some pictures of the robots themselves: http://www.chromatic-fantasy.com/2002-05-04-captur ed-by-robots/index.html [chromatic-fantasy.com]

    (Yes, the robots actually play music.. )

    -A
  • Fieldrobots (Score:3, Informative)

    by oever ( 233119 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @04:41AM (#6121941) Homepage
    At Wageningen University, a competition will be held tomorrow for robots to race through a cornfield.

    Here's the site [fieldrobot.nl] with a small movie showing a robot going.
  • I think someone slashdotted the scratch robot, 'cos he aint doin nothin.

    Now, slashdotting the scratch robot isn't a big deal, it isn't alive, but what about the skin-robot one? Their inventors claim it's alive. Would we be killing it?

    Are we murderers?

    Are YOU a murderer?

    Murderer!
  • by Anubis333 ( 103791 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @04:56AM (#6121976) Homepage
    With our current level of technology robots are incapable of existing in the art world. They may be able to create a useless, uninspired, simple meaningless object, scribble, or splatter, but they are incapable of the the silver tongued chaos, fraud, and illogic involved in passing off such pieces as anything other than what they are: sheer garbage.

    Longest. Sentence. Ever.

    CE
    • All art is worthless. The only thing that's really beautiful today, are the Doom 3 or Unreal 2 rendering engines. And Propaganda desktop themes.

    • fyi: the longest sentence ever is the final 60 page CHAPTER of the book "Ulyses" by James Joyce.

      Try reading it sometime ... it's a bland stream of (un)conciousness that will turn your mind to cream of wheat, and not the good kind of breakfast mush, but the kind that is white with no flavoring other than the starchy grain and a hint of sour milk that has been pulled from a dying guernsey, left in the sun for 7 days, then sent to the kitchen to stagnate in the fridge until combined with the crushed heart of
  • Oh my...
    BR Does that mean Simon Says is going to be the annoying little judge that makes all the other robots cry?
  • "We got more gongs than the break-dancing robot that caught on fire."

    --Homer, "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)"
  • for the sony symphonic orchestra. Nothing like metallic musicians on a woodwind.
  • by Dolemite_the_Wiz ( 618862 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @07:52AM (#6122735) Journal
    many with talents that are a bit harder to pin down.

    You mean like alcoholic, kleptomaniac, robots that are benders of steel?

    I know what you mean. How do you classify such a talent?

    Dolemite
    ____________________
  • I wonder if we've broken the scratch bot yet. You know, like if it's backlogged with seven years of scratching to do from all the /.'ers e-mail. I don't think we ever pointed the slashdot DoS cannon at a musician before ;)
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Art seems to aim for the impractical, while technology for the practical. Those who think this is NOT art would be correct. Those who think that technology is controlling the creation of these works are correct too. What makes people think that this is art is that there is a revealing aspect to these bots. Take the cover off of a laptop paint the capacitors brown and green and call them trees -- this is not art. Some would call this modern art -- still, not art. To fully understand what these are one
  • by RobSwider ( 669148 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:42AM (#6124314)
    I can see it now...

    Worlds Most Talented Robot

    15 Seconds to Robot Fame

    Who Wants to Marry a Robot?

    American Robot
  • to see humor in the phrase... "Participants include robots that draw, sculpt, and play musical instruments, as well as many with talents that are a bit harder to pin down." ????

There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. -- John von Neumann

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