By Mandy Feder
Move over musicians, the robots are ready to play.
The argument that machines cannot create art may have been trumped by an orchestra in Valencia, according to the Associated Press.
An article released on May 13 states, “They can defuse bombs, help decontaminate nuclear power plants, even vacuum the living room floor without bashing into the furniture or knocking over a vase. One thing you don”t see robots doing, though, is jamming with a live, human orchestra. Breaking into a 12-bar solo is something that”s still pretty much the province of people. Except at the California Institute of the Arts, where MahaDeviBot, GlockenBot, BreakBot and a handful of their cyber-friends have been making music with students in the small private school”s music and theater arts classes. For months, a dozen human musicians and a near-equal number of robots have been getting their groove on in anticipation of a concert they were to perform at the school”s Walt Disney Modular Theater.”
This is far more advanced than the pre-programmed keyboards that many people enjoy.
The article highlights Tammy, a robot marimba player, who “fiercely shook her bells as two of the orchestra”s drummers, NotomotoN and BreakBot and laid down a raucous beat.”
About a year ago my dad took me and my daughters to the worst show I have seen at Lincoln Center in New York. I am not offending him, he agreed.
There were no actors, just moving parts and speeches played over a loud speaker as water and fog rolled through the eerie armory building.
I”m sure the orchestra is pretty awesome, though.
I”m just not sure how I feel about temperamental robot artists. I can only visualize a character akin to “Rosie” from the Jetson”s cartoon, when I think about it.
Ajay Kapur, a musician with a doctorate in electrical engineering and head of the music technology program at a school co-founded by Walt Disney stated in the article that “It”s like a symbiotic relationship between humans and machines. “There”s a lot more interaction between the humans and the machines than just one person programming the robots and pushing the play button.”
Kapur and Michael Darling, who runs CalArts” theater arts program, goal was to “create a full-blown orchestra composed equally of people and robots, with trained musicians manipulating and instructing the robots.”
On one hand the project requires a lot of electronics, so the duo is making an environmental dent by recycling some e-waste.
Darling was quoted as saying, “We forage a lot of stuff. We have to buy some stuff, but we also scour electrical junkyards all over the Los Angeles area.”
Who are these robots and what are they made of?
Tammy was built from an old swivel chair, a collection of small abandoned bells and possibly old plumbing fixtures.
The KarmetiK Machine Orchestra stems from the combination of words karma and kinetic.
I would go to see this performance. It sounds pretty amazing. The concept reminds me of Alexander Calder”s Circus. I could watch that at the museum for hours when I was a child.
I was relieved to read that the creators have no intention of “turning the robots loose to do their own show, even though they expect it”s only a matter of time until someone does.”
“We don”t want to go that far ? “I don”t want it to go humanoid, because that”s going too far,” Kapur said. “We”re not trying to replace humans. We”re trying to enhance what humans can do with all this technology on stage.”
Mandy Feder is the Record-Bee managing editor. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com or 263-5636 ext. 32.
