PROGRAMS_
Synapse ARC Linkage project 2006_
Date Tags robotics, science
Fish-Bird is the result of a three-year Synapse Australian Research Council Linkage grant that brought together artist Mari Velonaki with roboticists David Rye, Steve Scheding & Stefan Williams at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, University of Sydney.
The project demonstrated that people can be interested in and engage with interactive/robotic objects that are utilitarian in appearance and are neither anthropomorphic nor ‘cute.’ The participants were drawn to the ‘Fish’ and ‘Bird’ robots not because of their appearance, but because of how they behaved. The robots conveyed ‘awareness’ of participants and interacted with them via movement and the use of poetic text.
As well as Fish-Bird the team also created a new photo-dynamic screen technology that was demonstrated through an additional installation, Embracement.
In addition, the team initiated the first major international conference discussing cross-disciplinary research in art and science, and the social implications of such research. The conference, New Constellations: Art, Science and Society, was held in March 2006 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Websites
http://www.mca.com.au/default.asp?page_id=77
http://www.csr.acfr.usyd.edu.au/projects/Fish-Bird/index.htm
