If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure's articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!
After leaving us for London, Daisy Ginsberg now designs health obsessed robots at RCA! Daisy uses her Bio Spy concept to express that we develop irrational relationships with machines, mourning dead appliances or resisting unfamiliar replacements. How will we behave when robots are trusted with the most intimate moments of our personal lives? Will the master/slave relationship survive? Is symbiosis with a robot possible? And what are the consequences of offering our most personal data for surveillance? Her questions remind me of my post on jealous computers and the 80’s electric dreams movie, with a special RCA’s touch!
For the hypochondriac, the BioSpy offers reassuring constant health surveillance, removing the nagging fear of illness. But would such a health aid induce unhealthy behaviour? The user and robot develop obsessive mutual dependence: the user only feels healthy when accompanied by the robot, sharing her most intimate information with it. Meanwhile, recording, storing and analyzing every physical change 24/7, the robot is dependent on its user’s health for its existence.
After a period of domestic harmony, the robot captures data that indicates serious illness. ‘Fearful’, it mirrors its user’s own neurosis. It logically computes that if it records any more data, it might ultimately result in unplugging. The robot’s erratic behaviour confuses the owner – is it behaving autonomously or malfunctioning? Is the user really ill or is it imagined?
Absolut Quartet ad, shot by Laurent Seroussi and designed by TBWA.
Jeff did it again. We followed his adventures right after he won the competition. Now he completed the proposal and currently exhibits his spectacular robotic work. Music and vodka works in pair and this time beautiful mechanics come into play. Jeff Liebermann and Dan Paluska worked together on Absolut Quartet.
Closeup of some of the 100 custom electronics boards fabricated, one for every note.
Absolut Quartet, a commission for the Absolut Visionaries project, is a music making machine like no other. The audience becomes part of the performance, while watching something that appears impossible. You can log in to ABSOLUTMACHINES.COM for a chance to interact with the machine. You will enter a 4-8 second theme, and the machine will generate, in real-time, a unique musical piece based on the input melody you have provided.
The marimba shooting mechanisms and closeup of the wine players. Photo by Sesse Lind.
You will see this melody played by three instruments. The main instrument is a ballistic marimba, which launches rubber balls roughly 2m into the air, precisely aimed to bounce off of 42 chromatic wooden keys. The second instrument is an array of 35 custom-tuned wine glasses, played by robotic fingers. Finally, an array of 9 ethnic percussion instruments rounds out the ensemble.
Soon my research lab opens its house! It is reserved to corporate sponsors only, but the Media Lab recently started an initiative opened to the public. The initiative, the LabCAST, highlights projects in their latest stages through videos. I recommend watching them!
One of the lab’s primary source of funding comes from more than 60 corporate sponsors whose businesses range from electronics to entertainment, furniture to finance, and toys to telecommunications! So we demo our latest prototypes and research ideas ranging from engineering to social sciences.
“Adventures in Science” illustration by Allan Sanders
A very busy time for us bricoleurs-researchers as we need to put together our latest ideas in a demo-able format. We need to reorganize the demo space, clean the old toys, bring new ones, empty the entire floor, use carpet cleaners, basically make the space looks bright and shiny!
I recently reorganized my research area to bring my projects together, start presenting a story about my line of work. From Psychohaptics a set of haptic garments for health care, to Picture This! a new input device for video capturing and editing! Working on the proposal for my general exams for my PhD I am defining a framework for my research that I hope to present at the open house.
Hybrid Architecture: An Environment for the Prosthetic Body by Georges Teyssot The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Vol. 11, No. 4, 72-84 (2005)
Drawing from philosophical, literary, artistic and technological sources, this text focuses on the theoretical relations between body and environment. It illustrates the argument by probing into various topics such as: desiring machines, body without organs, organs without body, gymnastic implements, body-building, celibate machines, incorporation, disembodiment, androids, robots, cyborgs, electro-mechanical and electronic apparatuses, spacesuits, wearable computers and augmented reality, the eco-technical spheres and the matrix. In addition, it looks into theories of medical devices that help explain the notion of the prosthetic body. Finally, within the context of theories of tools and cyber-organism, it attempts to rethink design through the terms of contemporary practices of daily life.
Blubber Bots are floating DIY robotic species that navigate autonomously and intelligently. Blubber Bots float, dance, seek and sing. They are light-seeking hellium-filled balloons that graze the landscape in search of light and cellphone signals. Designed into the inflatable form is a set of light sensors enabling them to seek out the brightest light source. They are also equipped with a phone flasher and can recognize cellphone activity. You can interact with a Blubber Bot by making a call and waving your phone near it. In response, it will go into a flocking dance or sing you a special tune.
In the pursuit to evolve and grow the biotopes, some of the species have bred forming 500 new young, The Blubber Bots. are offspring of the Autonomous Light Air Vessels (ALAVs). The Blubber Bots call for participation from the audience. Through educating an audience from a more hands on experience, Blubber Bots can be assembled and let loose into the world by anyone willing to do so.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
…………………………………………………………………………………
Suppose we can make a miniature camera whose motion can be controlled by a human. Put this camera in a colony of insects, and the human will gain a whole new perspective on the insects and their biology. Blow up the image to scale down the human appropriately, and amplify the insects sounds as well, and you have a complete telepresent experience that is incredibly exciting and educational at the same time. Technically, camera technology, optics and manipulation are well up to the task. A complete insect telepresence exhibit is now being constructed for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s entrance, in collaboration with the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, by Stacy All, Angela Demke and Ben Shamah at the Toy Robot Initiative.
Intuitive Automata Inc. creates robots that can help you in your everyday life. By applying new research in sociable robotics, the company is developing robots that can talk, see you, and help you in many ways.
Their first product is Autom™, a robotic weight loss coach, designed to help people who are trying to lose or keep off weight. Autom helps by encouraging you to stick with your diet for long enough to create long-term change and keep extra pounds off!
The research that led to this product started at the MIT Media Laboratory in the Personal Robots Group. Their earlier results in controlled Human-Robot Interaction studies have shown that a robot can be seen as more credible and informative than a character on the screen. Hence, there is reason to believe that a robot may be a more effective mechanism for conveying the behavior change message. Results showing that a robot can be more engaging than an animated character lends itself to the possibility of creating a set of longitudinal interactions, or a relationship, that is longer-lasting than previous techniques and therefore also more likely to have the opportunity to create long-term behavior change.
Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
