The Ars Electronica exhibition “Creative Robotics”, featuring the ITECH MSc Master Thesis “Tailored Structures” by Martin Alvarez and Erik Martinez, opened today in Linz, Austria.
Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things and omnipresent automation give rise to fear on the part of many people that they’re replaceable by machines. But hasn’t humankind long dreamed of mechanical helpers that could act autonomously, understand us, and perform arduous tasks we gladly dispense with? Are robots taking over work for us, or are they taking it away from us? Or is it rather the case that they’re tools that enhance our capabilities and expand the horizon of our possibilities?
The Creative Robotics exhibition showcases industrial robots outside of their natural habitat—the factory floor—and deals with them as tools of creative expression. In cooperation with KUKA, Linz Art University’s Creative Robotics Lab, the Department of Robotics at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, the Robotic Woodcraft research project carried out jointly by the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Association for Robots in Architecture, RWTH Aachen University’s Faculty of Architecture, and the Institute for Computational Design at the University of Stuttgart, we consider new areas of deployment and fields of application of industrial robotic technology. Even the creative economy has been increasingly discovering the multifarious possibilities afforded by these innovations. Here, robotic arms aren’t being utilized in conventional fashion for mass fabrication but rather as catalysts for innovation in the visual arts, design and architecture.
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO THE EXHIBITION:
Gerfried Stocker, artistic director of Ars Electronica
Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, Cultural advisor of the city of Linz
Reinhard Kannonier, Rector of the University of Arts Linz in Linz
Johannes Braumann, Head of the Creative Robotics Lab at the University of Arts in Linz
Andreas Müller, Chair of the Institute of Robotics at JKU Linz
Reinhard Nagler, Sales Manager of KUKA
More information on the exhibition can be found here.
More information on the ITECH MSc Master Thesis can be found here.