The World’s First Robot Art Exhibition

There are been several works of art produced by artificial intelligence over the last few years such as the one auctioned at Christie’s in New York last year, and the work of British computer scientist Simon Colton who has been developing creative graphics software to turn digital photographs into works of art. At the University of Oxford, however, there is an exhibition of the works of a robot called Ai-Da, which they say is the world’s first robot art exhibition where all the pieces are the work of one robot.

As yet, Ai-Da has no feelings, consciousness or thoughts but when asked about her work she will tell you that she wants her work to promote discussion and that she wants people to know that we live in powerful times.

Ai-Da is humanoid in appearance and her developers are billing her as the world’s first robot artist. She is powered by artificial intelligence and has facial recognition technology. She produces her work by analyzing the image in front of her which is then fed into an algorithm to dictate the movement of her arm. This enables her to produce sketches, the main aim being creativity.

Robot Art Exhibition at Oxford

The work is currently on display in Oxford where organizers say it is the first show in the world of its kind. One of the things that make her work so special is that the same image can be shown to her twice and each time she will produce a totally different piece of art, meaning the outcome is totally unpredictable.

She was manufactured by a team of specialists from Oxford University who specialize in human-like features and using algorithms. She captures the image with a camera in her eye and then a series of algorithms send instructions to her arm and hand, and hey presto a piece of art is born.

Her name pays homage to Ada Lovelace who was the world’s first female computer programmer and the exhibition in Oxford includes the history of AI and robotics. The art on display that Ai-Da has produced includes drawings, paintings, and sculptures.

Other Work On Display at The Robot Art Exhibition

There is also work on show from Karel Capek, the Czech writer who first coined the term robot, and pencil sketches of Alan Turing who was famed for his work in theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Monitor screens around the exhibition show Ai-Da reciting poetry that has been created by rearranging the works of people such as Oscar Wilde and Fyodor Dostoevsky, which some people find a little unnerving because if the hesitant way she speaks.

The leader of the Ai-Da project, Aidan Mellor, among others believes that AI will create new types of art and is probably the most exciting development for all forms of art, including music and writing, since the invention of the camera.