Boston Dynamics robot dogs to paint art for National Gallery of Victoria
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Famous artist Agnieszka Pilat is training three Boston Dynamics robot dogs to paint for the National Gallery of Victoria’s next exhibition. The robots will be trained over four months, according to a press release by the exhibitor.
One of the robot dogs, known as “Spot,” even lives with the artist in New York. She has named him Basia.
The three robots will now paint by themselves using sticks of oil paint on an acrylic ground canvas attached to the wall for work in this year’s NGV Triennial, opening in Melbourne in December.
Pilat sees Basia as “a companion” and says she will miss it while it paints in Melbourne.
“It is like having a small child – at some point, you have to let the child get on the bus by themselves; that is how this feels,” she told The Guardian on Wednesday.
Pilat was already commissioned to paint a portrait of Spot by Boston Dynamics, and that’s how she came to know the machines more intimately.
“I thought of it as a new celebrity, a new ruling class,” she said. “Portraits reflect power in society – Andy Warhol was painting celebrities, old portraiture reflected aristocracy. Now the power is going towards the machine, and it’s our obligation to really engage with it. It’s on us, their parents, to engage and train them to be good future citizens.”
Partners of humanity
She describes the robot animals as “playful” and “partners of humanity.”
“I am [a] techno-optimist – I like to say that I do for the machine what Diego Rivera did for the working class. And when people meet Spot in person, the vast majority fall in love very fast – it’s hard not to be charmed by them because they’re very cute,” she added.
Last month, it was revealed that robotics researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and UC Berkeley in the U.S. were able to teach the robotic dogs new tricks like opening a door and kicking a ball, adding a whole new dimension to the things they do. They also starred in a fashion show by Coperni.
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