Leonel Moura Non Human Art Complete

About

Non-Human Art

An Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium, co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, CITRIS People and Robots (CPAR), and FLAD — the Luso-American Development Foundation, presented with Berkeley Arts + Design as part of Arts + Design Mondays​.

Can a machine create its own art? This question, raised around the year 2000 by Leonel Moura, is at the core of his work with robotics and artificial intelligence. With the development of artificial intelligence of recent years, the possibility for machines to be intelligent but also creative is at the center of a debate on the future of humanity. Will machines take over? Or, is there an exaggeration over their capacities?

Based on a new kind of algorithm inspired in ant behavior, Moura has over the years built several artbots able to generate unique drawings and paintings. One of these machines, named RAP (Robotic Action Painter), is displayed at the American Museum of Natural History. RAP creates drawings, decides when they are finished, and signs with its name. The process demonstrates that based on simple rules and concepts such as feedback, emergence and stigmergy machines can create something that is not predetermined and can be considered art works in the contemporary cultural context.

Moura resorts to science but doesn’t claim to be a scientist. His work is inscribed in the history of art and its constant surpass of boundaries.

About Leonel Moura

Leonel Moura is a European artist born in Lisbon, Portugal, who works with AI and robotics. In 2001 he created the first robot arm able to generate unique paintings operate by an ‘ant algorithm’. In 2003 a swarm of ‘Painting Robots’ were able to produce artworks based on simple rules and emergent behaviour. Since then, he has produced several artbots, each more autonomous and sophisticated. RAP (Robotic Action Painter) was created for a permanent exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and Bebot for the Expo…