CONVERSE ENGINEERING: STORIES OF EMERGING DIFFERENTIATION AND OTHERNESS IN ROBOTIC ENTITIES:

To collaboratively explore the emergence of otherness and differentiation between robotic entities for the purpose of creating a dramatic scenario which directly evidences research at the AILab. This would include singular robotic entities as well as robotic entities embedded in modular systems. The devloped narrative, while fictive, will remain absolutely true to the experimentation at hand. (full proposal)

ADRIANNE WORTZEL

Understanding the AILab Mission: The AiLab seeks understanding of natural forms of intelligence and to design and build intelligent systems. The AILab is interdiscipinary in nature; researchers are, roboticists, engineers, physicists, lingquists, biologists, etc. The dichotomy of considering art and science as innately separate and bipolar things. This separation is an arbitrary paradigm.

At left, Dr. Daniel Bisig, a senior AILAb researcher who will collaborator on project Dr. Bisig provides a tour of the AILab as well as introductions to Researchers

I ask why the morphologies in the lab appear static and not dynamic as they are in nature?

Subsequently Dr. Bisig provides me with the Pfeifer-O'Hara publication on morpho functional machines.

It seems I am mistaken. It seems to me then that while the particuolar parts of a robot that relate to the morphology being evolved are dynamic, still the larger embodiment that let's say gives the robot its posture or locomotion is static in that it does not grow.

It seems I am mistaken. Indeed except for the amouse which contains standard parts, the bodies of the robots here do grow and change as the morphology is evolved - i.e, it is directly affected by experimentation and, in some cases, by environment.

A TEAM FORMS and though it will be dynamic through the process, expanding and contracting over time

Reto Inäebnit works with us from early July until September, when he rerturns his other projects. Reto worked on video effects in Jitter and on developing teleo controls for devices we planned to use. The honey is Cyril, Reto's son.

Tension escalates as sensor response is sought for input devices, re-inventing the mouse (again), At this point we have no idea why we are doing this, but we find it enormouslly compelling. Oh, yes, we are thinking about a telerobotic streaming video studio.... more later.

EUREKA!It works, we have sensor control capability, but simultaneously we realize we cannot accomplish the entire project in the four months left of the AIL residency. By the way, I am there but (a) having a bad hair day and (b) taking the pictures.

On the basis of our success in moving a rat's hair via teleo device, we become firm in our resolve to create a robotic/telerobotic interactive theater is planned as an arena for web visitors to produce their own scenarios by remote controlling the research robots, cameras, lights and stage (a debate ensues as to metaphorical qualities of revolving stage versus treadmill).

Nevertheless, we research required gear and persist in submititng our budget to the AILab Director, successfully receiving support for both a permanent and portable arena which will benefit the lab even if it falls short of implementing the telerobotic phase of the project during the AIL residency

Diagram by Umberto Eco from The Limits of Interpretation, A Midland Book, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1994, Illustration 9.2, p. 141

It is now imperative to commit to a path leading to the development of content. Such a commitment is required for the artist's methodology of alternating between currents of content and tech through trial and error in order to generate that one spark which will ignite the beast that is the work.

This ascent towards ignition is extremely Sisyphean in nature, the boulder often rashly retreating to a point even behind its origin of locomotion, leaving just enough time for the the artist and collaborators to get out of its way.

The artist decides to take this at face value; and story the lab as linear, but as a verdant and dynamically evolving archipelago, because the ailab consists of isolated islands of research where morphologies emerge indigenous to each "island". The artist proceeds to ask everyone in sight: "what is constant here" and "what is not?" and "which is more interesting to you and why?" and, mostly,"what data constitutes clues closest to revealing the nature of artificial intelligence?"

It is constant that each researcher is focused on the emergence of learning through development of a true and proscribed creature morphology. Each works independently in their own lab, office, cocoon, nest.

Text evolution is discussed with mortiz, a linguist working at the ailab. We have in mind tracing the evolution of Darwin's original text into a 21st century text describing embodiments of ai, but although we make some headway, we realize that this too is an avenue we will have to pursue travel outside the scope of the artists in lab residency because of time constraints.

LAB = GALAPAGOS = ARCHIPELAGO SCRIPTS ARE WRITTEN FOR:SPECIFIC RESEARCHERS/MORPHOLOGIES RESEARCHERS ARE INTERVIEWED AND SEEM PRETTY POSITIVE ABOUT A DRAMATIC SCENARIO SITUATED IN THIS WAY. THE DOMAIN NAME "ARCHIPELAGO.CH" IS ACQUIRED WITH EASE.

SPEECDH SYNTHESIS Since my work is always armatured by an originaltext, we explored many ways how to treat that text and one of them was speecdh synthesis. From the beginning I felt a commitment to have the robots represent themselves exactly as they are evolved at this itme and they do not nor will they in turure have speechl. So if I was going to create a dramatic scenario ampliefied by text, the voice or voices would have to be emerging from something else….

Research into linguistic theory and practice is commenced, to get our feet wet, then abandoned for a future time, when the science and art of it will probably have evolved into something else entrely.