Man And Machine

The intermingling of men and robotic technology in the artistic realm paves the path ahead for the future of art.

- Kames Narayanan

THE CROSS-POLLINATION OF technology and art is no headliner. The convergence between the two dates as far back as the 1950s when artists and designers pioneered the use of computer programmes and mechanical devices. Even in the days when technology was in its infancy, it presented a sense of infinite possibilities conceivable beyond the confines of reality.

With time, technology has progressed exponentially, stretching the boundaries of imagination even further than the mind has ever reached. In the contemporary state of affairs, the evolution of the digital realm has one-upped itself with the creation and subsequent modifications of robots. Gradually, these machines are finding their place amongst people in the flesh — the artistic set, no exception.

Here, two artists unlock another dimension to their bodies of work through the aid of robots.

CHARLES AWEIDA

WHEN CHARLES AWEIDA was in graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University, he chanced upon the sizeable ABB six axis robot — essentially, a robotic arm — behind a glass window. It was love at first sight. Beguiled by the machine, Aweida’s artistic instinct set him on a path of investigation. While the robotic arm was primarily a tool employed under an architectural premise at the university, Aweida was instead intrigued by its applications in fine art.

Enrolling into the architecture course purely to gain access to the machine, Aweida spent his time in the course building an ecosystem to what would go on to become a universe within which his genre of work would reside. Aweida aptly describes himself as an half-and-half — equal parts artist and roboticist — bolstered by a diverse body of knowledge in a wide spanning repertoire of creative mediums that include architecture, industrial design, illustration, motion graphics, user interface design, creative coding, digital fabrication, photography, film and fine art.