Creating Art With Robot

[Merlion]

This is creating paintings and not sculptures. But it is interesting. His homepage gives and shows more details.

Artist creates painting machine

07/17/2007, Artist Tom Lohre was watching his new Lego robot paint the final lines of a portrait of his wife when the kitchen timer started ringing.

As he hurried downstairs ... his robot continued painting the 16-by-20 inch picture all by itself.

"This is my apprentice," Lohre said, pointing to the handmade machine when he came back upstairs. "He does exactly what he's told, which works well when I want to work on my own painting, or when I have a quiche in the oven."

Lohre, a traditional portrait painter and "master tinkerer" who lives in Clifton, began exploring the possibility of a creating a robot that could paint in 1987. It wasn't until 2003 that he discovered Lego's Mindstorms robotic system and started creating art with the new technology.

The portrait of his wife, along with other paintings, are now on display at the Med+ Urgent Care on Montgomery Road in Montgomery.

"I've been working on this so long, it's nice to see it come together," Lohre said. "It's really just another expression of myself."

Before Lohre fully understood the software, he manually controlled the machine by pushing a button to make a mark on the canvas. But in January, he discovered a way to make the robot paint on its own.

"Art has to advance somehow - it always does," Lohre said. "It doesn't have to be with camel hair, it doesn't have to be with a wooden handle - it can be with a sophisticated machine that creates images."

Each picture begins as a photograph, which the computer system scans and distills down to a more simplified image made of eight different colors. After Lohre helps arrange the colors on the computer, the robot then re-creates the image on a canvas. ....

[GlennT]

Still waiting to see how this advances art. Painting by numbers is at least as profound an advancement, second only to velvet paintings and dogs playing poker.

It does seems like a wise career move for Lohre...you want to paint, but aren't that good at it, so delegate the work to a machine.

The machine would be better served to have some training from someone who knows how to paint.

Also, have Evaldart design the robot's form so it has some personality. Those mushy dot paintings are not going to provide enough charm to last long.

[Merlion]

Originally Posted by GlennT

Still waiting to see how this advances art.

This is about a new technique that involves investigation, technology, experiment, and work. Whether it advances art depends on what this artist and other artists do with it in future. Does you comment imply that you are doubtful that it would advance art?

[GlennT]

Creative genius advances art.

New tools advance craft, maybe. Show me convincing evidence that suggests that there have been huge advances in art from the era of ancient Greece to today, resulting soley from the introduction of new tools.

Meanwhile, I'm not getting worried that a robot is going to achieve my skill level in painting or sculpture anytime soon, nor have the capacity to imagine a better or more inspiring creative mindspace than the one I am able to, by the grace of God.

GlennT

[evaldart]

tools and technology do indeed add to the possibilities of sculpture yet bear in mind also that they have ruined much sculpture as well. As an artist leans heavier and heavier upon machinery and computers he is possibly handing over any chance he had at arriving at something totally unique. Sometimes, if the idea is rich enough, the art will require up-to-the-minute processes to carry it off. Fine. But too often the technology IS the idea and suffers, diminished by the CONTRAPTION that created it.
While tools and equipment extending our possibilities is a wonderful thing, kind of like getting stronger hands, or laser vision - it must remain connected to the creative source...that gray burger in you skull. When creative decisions are made BECAUSE of the machine or, god forbid, BY the machine you end up with another kind of burger in your studio. And it ain't pretty.

[ironman]

Hi, I prefer the drawings made by wind and trees.
Yes folks, that's right WIND AND TREES.
Seems someone tied pencils to low branches and placed a large sheet of paper underneath, the wind did the rest.
Have a great day,
Jeff

[Ries]

While I personally am not interested in "advancing" art, this is basically just a crude printer.

It is an output device, nothing more.
It is not deciding what image to depict, or deciding how to depict it, and as such, is no different than an inkjet printer, a laser cutting machine, or a 3D router.

Whatever it makes is still entirely dependant on the actual human being that makes all the decisions.

And making decisions is still the bedrock of how humans make art. Those decisions, of course, include what to depict, how to do it, and what media to use.
What interests me about art is not how "advanced" it is, but instead, what decisions the artist made.
This guy may be a good portrait painter, but frankly, this lego work doesnt appeal to me.

Now cats- they can actually paint.