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Projekt: "Bar Bot" (Jakob Dietrich & Ewald Elmecker)

Beteiligte Studierende:
Jakob Dietrich und Ewald Elmecker

The "Humanoid Robotics Laboratory (HRL)" works on the creation of completely artificial humanoid machines.
Remarkable results in the field of bar robotics have been recently achieved. Researchers and engineers at the HRL believe that now the gap between the robots of today's science and their ideal, the human being, is only a very small one.

Helena: No, you don't understand me. What we really want is to - to liberate the Robots.
Helman: How do you propose to do that?
Helena: They are to be dealt with like human beings.
Helman: Aha. I suppose they're to vote? To drink beer? To order us about?

(from the theatre play "R. U. R. - Rossum's Universal Robots" by Karel Capek)

Robotic research spawns the most remarkable machines attempting to emulate the ideal of the human being. Hondas Asimo walks clumsily about the world, the Anthropos robot of the European Media Lab is trying to pick up contact with human beings, the MIT's Kismet is making funny faces to people looking at it.

These robots show some features which are very typical for the human being: social interaction, bipedal walking, vision, intelligence (of course only in a basic form in comparison). But something is missing, something other than the lower complexity and performance of these robots' human features, something fundamental. What makes them so different from human beings? Or the other way round: what is it that makes humanity human?

Science and industry build robots for the advantage of humans. Robots should be our intelligent, cheap workers and adjutants. But humanity is not profitable for any other species. In fact, isn't mankind's most striking feature the pursuit of its own advantage, its impetus the interest in itself?

The Bar Bot is driven by self interest. Its aim is to drink beer. In order to achieve this goal in bars, the social beer consumption localities of human society, it also deals with money. It asks people for coins and spends them as soon as there is enough for a beer. The Bar Bot is not beneficial for humanity. Rather, it maximises the advantage for itself, like humanity. But to pursue its own, highly selfish objectives, it depends on others: somebody has to give it coins, somebody has to hand it a beer. This is where it engages in communication, in social interaction with human beings. The Bar Bot is driven by self interest, it interacts socially with humans and is predisposed to alcohol. The Bar Bot is probably the most humanoid robot ever built.

Exhibitions
Sep. 2003 Split Film Festival, Croatia
Oct. 2003 Media Space Festival, Stuttgart/Germany
Nov. 2003 roboexotica Vienna/Austria
Dec./Jan. 03/04 European Cultural Capital 2004 Lille/France
May 2004 Intertool Fair Vienna/Austria
Sep. 2004 Sensory Circus at Ars Electronica 2004 Linz/Austria

Awards
First prize in the category "Other Achievements in the Fields of Cocktail Robotics" at the Roboexotica Festival.

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EXPERIMENTELLE GESTALTUNG

In der Experimentellen Gestaltung steht nicht ein einzelnes Medium und das eindeutig definierte künstlerische Produkt im Mittelpunkt der Ausbildung, sondern die künstlerischen Produktivitätsstrategien, das Prozesshafte künstlerischer Ideen und deren Realisierung in unterschiedlichsten Medien wie Video, Fotografie, Experimentalfilm, Sound computerbasierte Techniken sowie Zeichnung, Performance und andere.

Aus dem Spannungsverhältnis zwischen (kultur-)wissenschaftlichen, gesellschaftskritischen und technischen Diskursen und der Eigenwilligkeit individueller Wahrnehmungen entwickelt sich Neugier und künstlerischer Forschergeist, die über das Experimentieren zu unerwarteten Erkenntnissen und unkonventionellen Resultaten führen.

Jahresthemen, oft zu aktuellen gesellschaftspolitischen Entwicklungen und deren Relevanz für die künstlerische Produktion, bieten einen diskursiven Zusammenhang für Projekte, die individuell oder in Gruppen erarbeitet werden. Die Experimentelle Gestaltung ist ein kreativer Freiraum und ein künstlerisches Labor.


EXPERIMENTAL ART 
(english version)

The focus of teaching within the Experimental Art curriculum is not primarily on a single medium or clearly defined artistic product but rather on strategies of artistic productivity, the process character of artistic ideas and their implementation through a wide variety of media including video, photography, experimental film, sound, computer-based techniques as well as drawing, performance and others.

The stimulating tension between (cultural-)scientific, socio-critical, and technical discourses and the independence of individual perception fosters curiosity and the spirit of artisitic research. By engaging in experimentation, this approach will generate unexpected findings and unconventional outcomes.

Annual themes – often centred on topical socio-political developements and their relevants for artistic production – provide a discoursive context for projects developed either individually or within a group. The Experimental Art curriculum is a space for creative freedom and artistic laboratory.

 



 

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