LOADED QUESTION #1

If you have a ‘machine’– here a comuterised router – it is relatively easy to imagine it as a robot. Some may argue about the extent to which it is but let’s just imagine it that way.

If we take the question, “can a robot make art", and ask it of a pencil, paint brush, or any tool, we can answer yes but probably with the rider that it is the person driving it who is doing all the artmaking. Almost immediately you come up against that question that never really goes away. The “what is art" question!

However, we can be sure of one thing, the outcome of an interaction between material, tools (even robots) and a human is ever likely to be cultural production. The extent that any of this tells a story, carries/invokes emotion, a history(ies) is unveiled then perhaps something’s artness is more or less an open question. Yet it’s one that might be answered in many ways – and has been.

If we take another leap into the unknown and ask if we can make, or teach, a robot smile, or cry perhaps, we might enter a somewhat different headspace. Where we go from there is dependant perhaps upon the extent to which a robot is allowed to be seen/imagined as an extension of one’s body, or even one’s self.

Whatever, there will probably need to be some collaboration or cooperation involved for there to be any artfulness.