Deborah Turnbull Tillman and Mari Velonaki
Recorded 23 and 27 April, 2020 Introduction This blog is an interview between seminal robotics artist Mari Velonaki and new media curator Deborah Turnbull Tillman. Both have utilised museums and galleries as their laboratories for iterating and understanding the effect of extensions of the digital sphere, particularly in the area of Human-Robot research. In examining a series of case studies over Velonaki’s career, this interview reveals a 20-year history behind the artwork and artist that introduced social robotics to Australia. From interactive works to participatory spaces, Velonaki and Turnbull Tillman explore the way the conversation has shifted in robotic art to allow cultural events and platforms to generate an awareness and understanding of future social morays. The original interview took place over distance during the COVID-19 Pandemic, on the 23 and 27 April 2020. Below is an adaptation jointly edited from those transcripts. DTT: We are meeting today to do an interview for publication to focus on is the shifting conversation in trans-disciplinary practice regarding robotics and socialization, which is your specialty. So welcome to the interview. Did you want to give a brief introduction of yourself? MV: I’m an artist and an academic. My work in the last 20 years has been in interactive systems across media arts and social robotics. I started working with multi-sensor responsive systems as installation artist from 1995 and in 2003 I moved to social robotics, establishing the field of social robotics in Australia. My first robot was the Fish-Bird series, which to me really stands for my undergraduate days. Now that I'm a Professor in Social Robotics, the question and the research focus remain the same: how do how humans interact with technological systems? Specifically, around systems and how they communicate, do we require some sort of agency? DTT: Here is where my interests and yours overlap, Mari, where I'm always looking at this three-prong relationship between a creative practitioner, the curator and their audience; you often act as the artist/designer, work with a technologist, and consider an audience or end-user. Based on the materials that you're using; your practice simultaneously has a very contemporary feel and quite an historical presence. Looking at the span of your work as a curator of interactive and new media art and the shifting conversation that we've been talking about, the first question I wanted to ask you is simple, an icebreaker. You did mention being both an artist and an academic. You're an established academic, but some of the conversations that we've had have been around how you are challenged by the administrative part of your role as Lab Director. Can you comment and talk a little bit about what your day to day is like? MV: Being both an artist and an academic can create tensions in your practice. It's interesting because as an artist researcher, what drives the creative aspect for me is the research part; there is a searching in something like that. It doesn't matter if it's in academia or it is an academic pursuit, because my labs are in academia and my collaborators are in academia. However, there's something very liberating about conducting research. That's why artists like myself are drawn to it; because it’s creation, it's moving to the unknown, it’s testing new concepts. Coming from an arts background, as an artist, I still think I'm doing the same thing, only with bigger labs and more equipment. So, this is what drives me, this is what I think academia does for me and did for me. It gave me a home; it’s enabled me to shift between the studio and the lab. Academia wasn't merely an umbrella for my salary. It has been a community and a space where I could advance my work. For many years, I had my studio, but when my work shifted to robotics, I needed a very different infrastructure and level of collaboration. Not only regarding Technical Support, but proper collaboration at a higher level. People that do research in the same area, but maybe from different disciplines, need to spend a significant amount of time in developing new ideas, new projects in a shared home. This is the creative part to me, the research. It’s the creative way to establish continuity, to continue the initial conversation of the shift in conversation from media arts to cultural robotics 25 years later. That’s how I perceive creativity, as the most active angle, in thinking things through as you're doing things. Academia was an enabling environment following my PhD. My first big lab was the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, a major mechanism for research. Now, I’m Directing my own labs, the Creative Robotics Lab and the National Facility [for HRI] and working with people within academia and, also as I'm getting gracefully older, hopefully providing mentoring to the next generation of researchers. I have also been mentored by great people and these trans-generational exchanges are very important when building teams. As a professor, you must bring your mind to your research, perform creatively and pay for people, their salary in most cases. This can be stressful, and it takes up a lot of time, but I can deal with it when I think of the bigger picture and the bigger picture at this stage is two things. One, is my own research and two, is a contribution to the field and social robotics as a multidisciplinary field. Both, I'm very passionate about as each of these activities is enabling the next generation. [The kind of research we do at] the new National Facility for Human-Robot Interaction Research is really important. This kind of vigorous testing and evaluation about new systems that we plan to embed within social structures, not only robotics, but every technological system. I can have incredibly long days where I spent more than 16 hours in one of the labs because we're doing something new. We might have an experiment or be designing a new robot with collaborators. Or it could be a day that is much shorter, but all about numbers and figures; spreadsheets of how much money we need for something or how much a project will cost; or what kind of contacts we need to make for the National Facility [to succeed]; so, it really is a mix. But I always say to myself, “I chose this and that is my vision.” I'm supporting my vision. It's not that someone forced me to do it, and actually I'm grateful to Academia because they gave me the space to do this; there is this kind of trust, a leap of faith that they took with me. On reflection, if I create a robot that repulses versus attracts people, it's still new research and I can write about it and demonstrate the public’s emotional reactions about what to do in its presence. It's not about product creation in that sense that the experiments attached to the research always have to be successful. Success is when we learn new things about what we should do based on human behaviour in response to our work. But I still think that Academia, with all these challenges, gave me space. And in that space, my voice could be heard. Page Break Q2. Which are the works that are pinnacle to your career (2003, 2011 and now) and what is your thinking around their inception? Contained within the dialogue below are synopses of seminal works of Velonaki’s: the Red Armchair Series (1998), Fish-Bird (2003-present day), and Diamandini (2011-13, present day). DTT: And it's a strong voice. It's an important one. Your practice developed in the same institution that you're working in now. Did you do your undergraduate also at UNSW? MV: Yes, I did my undergraduate immediately after I came from Switzerland. I started in 1995. The reason I came to Australia was because of media art; movements like the VNX matrix (a Cyberfeminism group) and artists like Stelarc. Coming to Australia in the 90s, with a very strong voice in media arts and in women and technology, there was this kind of pioneering spirit. It was very liberating because I was coming from performance, and my idea of media art prior to my studies [in Australia] was performances synchronised to slide projectors. I remember my first class in Australia at COFA. It was on time-based media arts, but [I was] very analogue. I prefer things that that I can open with a screwdriver and see what's inside. I was the only woman, and all the boys were learning this software, and I was the slowest one. It took me forever to learn how to save my work and we had to bring external flip drives. I decided out of ignorance to move to homemade electronics, to customize and [create] installations because I was coming from working in and with space in installation art and performance, and I found it very difficult to see what was on the other side of the screen, that kind of virtual space that [existed] within the generation of the CD-ROM. I was the only one that was working on physical installations in that class. So, I started designing my own systems because I wanted to own and understand them. There was something about the tactility of the analogue, about putting a board together, about soldering it. I didn't do it because I was more advanced. I did it because I thought it was easier than navigating a computer screen and all the things I couldn't see within an operating system. I found them very strange and mysterious, so I thought if I could build it, I could better understand it. My first interactive installation was [based on] speech recognition called The Red Armchair series. I did my first interactive installation using speech [recognition], where I used the software for digital dreams. A few years later, the work was shown at Artspace, and it started part of the conversation about different aspects of the digital and new medias. The truth is that there was this mystery. You walk into a room dark room. There's a projection of a woman sat in a red armchair in the digital space. You can see only her back. You sit in an identical red armchair in the physical space and her back becomes your back, and there's a light box on the floor with the printed command words like decay… dance… sing...and you are transported between the two realms. There was a microphone adjacent to the identical chair where the audience could create sentences for her. You talk to her and for her; and in this approach, it doesn't matter what you say to her. This was my criticism of connection with technology, a Dadaist approach to interactivity. Even when the woman in the work responds to you with movement, you never get to see her face. Instead, you are met with aspects of the mundane, such as swinging arms, a swirling chair. This is how I queried or questioned the notion and watched the audience’s response. They were always very generous. This particular work was pre-emptive to my PhD research which investigated Jean de Baudry’s theory of the cinematographic apparatus which highlights our pre-cinematic desire or fascination with a projected other. This work created my fascination with digital characters. To me it was really interesting this need to control the digital space, to control [or flirt with] this digital persona who’s face you cannot even see. Later, there is a cinematic relationship revealed in the interactive installation. And even later there's something about the projected other and the project itself. Page Break Q3. What did you think you would be doing after making works during your Master's and PhD? DTT: Is it what you expected? MV: I shifted a little in terms of moving from installations to shared spaces. My PhD was [aptly] on new interfaces, specifically new interfaces within responsive environments. The last chapter, the ‘Future Work’ part of my PhD, introduced the next work: Fish-bird. After my PhD I was very fortunate; I got my first ARC Grant, and I was also the Chief Investigator. As soon as I graduated, I moved to the Australia Centre for Field Robotics to [realise] Fish-Bird. It was a very smooth continuation. I'm still doing the same thing. The difference then is that the focus was more of a creative process. Now, I see a big need to address specific needs in the Human-Robot Interaction space in applied ways. This inquiry should not exist only in the cultural space, rather it should extend the creative process outside the traditional gallery or the museum space. You cannot have a healthy society if you don't have cultural values implemented in different sections of society. I think it’s so important that we’re talking about social robotics and about systems that in the very near future are going to interact at different levels within social structures. Page Break Q4. How have the materials with which you make changed between 2003 and now? MV: First, I use both the theory of cinematographic apparatus and Plato's Cave Analogy, as one of the analogies as our need. Next, I [articulate the] need to connect, to seduce, to engage with something projected. It’s pre-cinematic [but was present, in the budding new media consciousness]. Later, in 2003, my work shifted from projected characters to kinetic objects, to robots. But again, I was doing the same thing, creating characters, creating agents. But instead of being projected occupying space, my work [became about] objects in a 3-dimensional space. So, like Pin Cushion, they were tactile objects as objects that we interact with [like the pins and the latex cushion] that offered affordance to the character represented by the projected other. With the robotic characters, what I've done instead of the character being projected as part of the object, that character becomes a kinetic object. That's how I moved to robotics. Because I wanted to shift affordances from the relationship between physical objects and projected characters to kinetic characters that you can share physical space with. Kinesis creates a very different dialogue when you share physical space. Page Break Q5. How do you think the conversation around multi-disciplinary practice has changed between 2003 to now? MV: Because we're talking about social robotics now, you need to have teams made up of different disciplines; you have people from the arts and design; you have psychologists; you have you have AI-experts; you have roboticists and mechatronic experts. When we start designing systems for the near future that have agency, that both interact with people to assist then, to protect them, to rehabilitate them, to inject in there this element of creativity and start thinking of experiential design in the everyday. How, then, do we enhance this find? I'm not talking about pseudo-artistic experiences here; I'm talking about working together from different fields. When I'm designing something for a museum, someone interacts with the work for maximum 20 minutes, half an hour, right? Or they may revisit the work over time. This could happen with a work like Fish-Bird because its immersive, people spend time reading of all the writing [the poetic phrases the chairs printed out to communicate with each other]. People spend that much time because of the narrative and the storytelling and the performative aspect of the interaction. I'm giving this extreme positive scenario for cultural or creative engagement. It's very different to design something that people need to help them, or something that they need to share their space or the workplace with for the next 10 years. So again, you have creative systems, and that system is one that can create an experience and has a sense of renewal in there and the learning needs to be a part of it. Because humans get bored very easily, we learn a lot from how people interact. Within a museum space as a curator and an artist with works in different countries, we've learned a lot about principles. Now there are some basic principles about engagement; but surprise, comfort, and an emotional kind of elevation tend to feature. However, it's much more than that. We start from an emotive reaction and then you realize that every work is different. That's why I find it exciting. Also, that aspect of creativity, [often realised in museums and galleries] I could prioritise as more important than [business outcomes]. But now with the [Creative Robotics] Lab and what we do at the [National Facility for HRI Research], if we talk about the new field of social robotics, it is by definition multi-disciplinary. I'm trying to be an advocate that art and design are not just there for decorative purposes. We are not there to make things look better. We’re not there to tick the politically correct box. We’re there because we know how to create an experience. This experience is part of what is missing in social robotics. DTT: I think there's something about culture and creativity that that in the coming years, with all these systems, there's going to be a space for innovation in a DaVinci kind of model. In places, outside of the more traditional and very important institutions like museums. I think it’s interesting, and if we could just pick up that thread about the different spaces in which we make and engage with people. Page Break Q6. How is the contribution of arts in multi-disciplinary practice missing from the conversation? DTT: I notice that a lot of your works they have a trajectory. They don't just show once, but there's an iterative quality to them that makes learning within research possible. And even if you don't know that you're doing it, it's kind of an automatic reflection, and then a shift in perception and a shift in making and exhibiting it again in a different way as part of another conversation. This is, I suspect, how your robots become social as well. Is that they're involved in multiple levels of social commentary at any given time. MV: It is important and it’s a good point, but because for example like with Fish-Bird, every time we exhibited, we made it a site specific for the location, for the museum or the gallery where it was going to be installed. For example, we connected the robots to online maps, so they possess information about their surroundings, their vicinity. We included vocabulary from the local language. The last time we installed Fish-Bird at the Bilbao in Spain, there were many opportunities to include indigenous language samples, so the robots learned a new environment, a new language. This integration to their environment through language gave the sense of current or real time and would keep the [kinetic agents] connected by printing something from the local newspapers every morning. I feel it’s important to give more back, to learn more, to use the platform for other people, to learn, to create, to improve. Our robots have parallel lives outside of the galleries and museums they are exhibited in. We use the [robots] as both demonstrators and research platforms in the labs when they're not in exhibitions. Now we're working on the sound component with Diamandini, but there are all these other experiments that can happen in parallel which are very different to the exhibition [scenario]. It's important to show something different to what has come before. So, after all these years Diamandini now has a new component, but I would like to incorporate a different sound component that she, that the woman from the Red Armchair Series, that Fish-Bird, that the Woman with the Snowman, didn't have before; that improves reciprocal interaction in a new way. MV: There is a new robot that I am working on in this way. I've made robots that appear familiar, like Fish-Bird, where objects that look like wheelchairs are designed to behave like lost lovers. We have Diamandini who behaves like a humanoid but looks more sculptural. Then we have something like the new robot [currently unnamed]; it's more like a geometric sculpture but is kinetic so there's the familiarity of contemporary form and yet it moves autonomously, like a robot. It exists in the abstract, but it is real. DTT: Are these artworks physical actors with a virtual connection that mirrors human activity? It's interesting to me that it's more abstract. Part of that idea, this fracture, the dissolution of form and then the coming back together is really interesting to me in terms of technology as well. The way that we click on and off of things, how we move away from each other and come back, how we get together as people; and then continue these actions with our technologies. However, now the technologies come with us in a way that you again looked at human behaviour and your modelling of a piece of kinetic art or creative agent. And then you're observing, recording and analysing how people engage with it. To me, this is the most fascinating part of your practice, because I don't see other people doing this in the same way. MV: Thank you. And no, they aren’t, not in the applied way, not in this carefully articulated way across multiple platforms with something as relevant as social robotics. DTT: The social aspect of it is the point of our studies is, in our collaboration together. It's always on the human side. So, your interest is the human side; even though you're more comfortable with building (with screwdrivers and making motherboards), you can do all of it. MV: Yes, but I think that the software side is a mystery to me as well. I understand it a bit better now, but to me, it's just a bit like magic. Part II DTT: The next question that I wanted to ask you about is the materials you selected, how you fabricated them and in what settings you felt comfortable making them in. Have they changed from when you began from the 90s until now? MV: I wouldn't say the main curiosity is in the materials. The materials are the actual makeup of the robots. From 2003 onwards, materials became more malleable, so we can do more customised things. It depends, though. If you mean the exterior of the robot, there are new materials with more possibilities in terms of electronics. Things are smaller [but have retained their strength]. We still struggle with battery life, but batteries haven’t progressed about as much as we have wanted them to. The material is one [part of the making], but usually the process we work through is the first thing we consider. I need to perceive what the new form is and if I would like to create the robot, and if so, what has changed [since the last time I created a robot]. It's not so much the materials that matter, because there are always new materials that you can use. The more important question is what are you using the materials for? When investigating the materials, the first step is considering the situational context. Then we examine what the best materials, techniques, methods and collaborators might be best. The situational context is much more specific. I wouldn't design/make a robot for a museum [and present it to] a different kind of collaborator, like Fuji Xerox. The new robot that we're building is highly influenced by the situational context of a shared office. So, the principles of designing it is very much around what it is not. It is not a robot that you can take into a museum [for short, individual or causal engagements]. Rather, it's a robot that will interact with people in long-term interactions. As such, I find myself using a very different method. Instead of just knowing the creative principles in order to design a robot, this means extensive consultation with a team of users. It requires a strong understanding [of the space and the occupants’ relationship to that space], and that can take years to understand, this space of operation. I wouldn't call it co-design, but co-influenced design. But what has changed [in materials] since 2003? Perhaps the approach to applying the materials within context are the parameters we should consider. Within research, I have this kind of artistic compositional freedom. For example, with Fish-Bird, the research question wasn’t about people and interaction; it was it was appearance versus behaviour. It’s almost a process of discussion [or dialogue] with this robot about what it will be co-authoring with you [the designer] and with the people that use it. That's why I [consider] situational context because it's almost a custom build for a very specific location and practitioner (robot, designer or another end-user). Involving a sense of ownership with the people who are going to use this robot is very important for the long-term acceptance of a robot. The creative principles for me looks more like an interesting exterior that might change as different decisions get made around the robot. But learning is much more important. I think to learn and to involve other systems [both human and machine] in that learning is more important than materials. I'm aiming towards learning the strengths in different behavioural components. When it comes to long term co-inhabitation, behaviour components such as coexistence, acceptance, interest, and boredom become the exploratory parameters. We don't know what happens within these parameters as yet, so that's very exciting. I think that's not so much the materials that they have changed, but my approach and my challenge as a creator has changed, it’s grown and evolved. I want to make things that people will hopefully use or co-evolve with. This is my goal. Time is another consideration. I’m considering the interaction for 20 minutes, for 5 minutes, for 3 minutes. I'm considering what happens after a week, what happens after a month. What happens after a year? What don’t we know about these different time frames? When we talk about long-term interaction, we have the biggest data collection in the world [of people engaging with these robots over time] with Fish-Bird and Diamandini.. And this interaction with robots is happening in cultural spaces. Yes, we can learn a lot, but only up to a point. What about non-cultural spaces? This is a new consideration. It’s something I didn't have before; access to non-cultural spaces. It is something with social robotics that is the biggest challenge at this stage of my creative process, and it’s what we do with the lab and the Facility. It’s about better understanding the systems side of things, the robots’ multi-sensor interfaces, and implementing these for everyday life. We already know about our culturally social robots deployed in museums and galleries and what happens in these culturally shared public spaces when people interact with new kinetic forms and their with new behaviours with curiosity. [But the iterative development of these cultural agents post-cultural engagement, when they return to the lab, is still in development.] Page Break Q7. How can we create an awareness of the need for communication between arts and our multi-disciplinary collaborators as a necessary voice? DTT: What is it about these other spaces that interest you? MV: The other spaces still require creativity, but they have to be many other things as well. So, I'm trying to develop principles that that collaborative practitioners need to consider to co-create. This can influence the end-users, but I also want to co-create with different disciplines, some who might distrust trans-disciplinarity. What we have is this multi-disciplinary team of people looking at long-term interaction between humans and robots. That's why we need social scientists there from the beginning. That's why we need Ethics from the beginning, and to consider AI from the beginning. Some of the principles, for example, are first about understanding situational context. Secondly, you would design experientially. It doesn't matter if that robot is for rehabilitation or cultural engagement in a museum, it must be a positive experience for the human. Because you can have a negative experience, but it’s not the desired outcome for long-term co-habitation. One of the only things I've learned about human-machine and human-robot interaction, after 25 years engaging these modes, is that people are unpredictable and that's what makes this research very exciting. That was always the question. Since I started with my first interactive system in 1996-97, it's still the same, even harder because now you try to predict human behaviour based on what we haven’t done yet. What happens after few months when the novelty of ‘the new robot’ dies away? Let's say in a work environment. If you have a robot but you are also asking the question, why do we need the robot? You know, before you [initially] go to engage or [later] get used to having it, do we need the robot? And what does this robot represent? Then it's about organising around some basic principles. As you know [across CRL and the Facility] we don't believe in relationships of replacement. We don't want robots to replace humans unless there's a very good reason; for example, rescue robots replacing people doing incredibly dangerous jobs. But jobs that assist or enhance experiences are different, jobs that encourage humans to extend or reconnect. This is around agents encouraging or working with humans rather than standing in for them. This is something that I'm very conscious of, especially when I work with different fields; across design, created systems and social robots; for commercial companies or for government departments [like Defence]. What all these things have in common is the human experience. I think the core of what we're researching is how you might enhance the human experience [through social robotics] and how [this might be done by] making people feel more engaged, more safe. If it's something that helps them with the everyday, that’s better. How do you create systems [that embody] the creative principles and we discussed before? It's why we have to be creative when you have artists and designers working on the experiential, designing these multi-disciplinary teams while the creative experience would be in the museum. I don't say that everything needs to be an artwork but there's something about creativity in the DaVinci model that it could [apply] to so many other areas. DTT: Since you have these big teams and all these expectations around systems and people, I think it's important to think about the creative aspect. I think, too, that there's a lot of ways that creativity can be harnessed; in the practitioner, in the materials, in the application of the materials, in the relationship between the people, in the setup of the situation. Creativity can exist, it can be [physically manifested rather than simply remain] an aesthetic concern, due to the human side of things. There is a cognition factor. MV: The settings are important the first time you see something. In a true philosophical, Hiegel sense, it is important to consider aesthetics. But there's so many other things in the invitation for humans to engage with robots. The approach in application, for example; I think that’s why it translates well across arts in the materials that you're using is because there is that space for material creativity, including aesthetics, in robotics and in artificial intelligence. DTT: It struck me a little bit, the way that you were describing how you shifted from an aesthetic concern, from having free artistic reign to a more contemplative, designed approach. The visual of the robot going between desks and giving pieces of itself for people to use and then going around and collecting those pieces back [which is what I understand, the future of this robot is,],it’s quite different from an artwork as it's got a design aspect of a problem to solve, rather than the exploration of an idea. These two aspects of the robot must be approached differently. Are you starting with an idea, or you responding to a brief from a project, those are two different approaches, right? One is an exploration, and one is solving a problem. I think with the new robot, it appears to have both elements; it’s an artwork, but with a situated context and design brief to respond to, complete with a problem to solve. MV: With the new robot, it’s been very challenging and exciting because it wasn't about responding to a design brief or creating an artwork, it was about joint research between a university (UNSW) and a corporation (Fuji Xerox); this project had both. That's why the responsibility was higher for me, and the pressure was higher too, because it had to fulfil a brief but also had a lot of compositional freedom. As such, we came up with something that could be a sculpture, but then it had to have all these other functions around learning about human-robot co-habitation. In a way, we will never know if it's successful or not. We need to test for years in order to thoroughly understand how these things work. Inside of this I want to test the acceptance of different aspects of the robot, the form and the time spent in interacting with the robot, and its proxy within museums in different countries. [In a way, the museums are our control to test ‘other’ environments against]. This was very different. I mean it was harder because I had to think for the stage to be set. It wasn't the company or the brief. It was really about the need we have in social robotics and that it was a great opportunity. To start, why not investigate what it means for a robot to grow up, to age. Or what does it mean for a robot to evolve? Does it evolve or devolve? What's amazing to me as time passes by, is that I'm thankful to Fuji Xerox that they trusted me to take on this kind of unusual project. It was an application for things we don’t know about; around distributed systems and a sense of ownership; about how something evolves or devolves over long-term experimentation and the difference between a successful and unsuccessful museum robot, Fish-Bird is a success, Diamandini is a success [and over time, they are still in demand long after their initial prototype and launch exhibition]. There's still a high demand for these robots to be seen, and sometimes we're too busy to exhibit and so we use them in the lab as research object. We say no to many exhibitions. DTT: It's interesting to me that the robots play a role in their downtime. When they're not being front-facing catalysts for questions around cultural and social robotics, they actually have a research function. At the start of our conversation, you were talking about very specific things around usability and testing that you're still working on this in terms of materials. I think that your mind goes there because that's the problem that you're solving right now. So, there’s the art form, but in terms of multi-platform projects, that art object can exist in different platforms. MV: Not all my work is like that, but some of it is; and I love this work where you move from platform to platform because as you do, you learn. And then in a spiral kind of research methodology it’s about iterative process, through testing, developing but also from one platform to another. One platform informs the other, so you hopefully start building something a little bit more concrete. DTT: This is a really beautiful metaphor for the conversation that you feel like you've been having for the last 23 years. This metaphor of the spiral methodology unravelling across multiple platforms, with considerations including all the different disciplines that touch creative or social robotics. I also want to talk about what’s different, and so that thing about arts or design being in the conversation as much as engineering, or computer science, for us it’s easy to grasp because we're on that side of things, engaging as a material or methodological approach when we can appropriate these tools. That’s very easy for us to do as creatives, but it might not be as easy from the computer science and engineering side. What is the consideration or the conversation around creativity in robotics and AI? MV: First of all, I would argue that there's a lot of creativity in Mechatronics. It’s not present in the same way [artists would] understand creativity, but if you want to build something you must have this this period of exploration. Also, how can you discuss the next generation of whatever you were doing without considering Artificial Intelligence (AI)? I really like all these new behaviours, of students and novices learning by demonstration, of the reflective elements of people understanding the creativity in their own field. Not something light, but something innovative. In this space, what we think of as creativity, we also think of as innovation. To me creativity and innovation form a kind of dialogue. It's a new compositional approach. To me the best term to describe this process is to innovate within the design. The key idea is that the Experiential design platform is innovating the materials, innovating the approach, innovating the AI, innovating the mechatronics, and each of the other elements as well. It was always easy for me to work in a multi-disciplinary area. It becomes trans-disciplinary by the definition that you need all the accompanying disciplines to build something by moving across and through them. It's easier because you have an end goal, even if you are designing and developing robots with big teams of people with different expertise; you just expand your considerations to apply across the disciplines represented. In this way, in a big project everyone has a part is like a puzzle. With the new robot every piece of the puzzle is individual. When you take away any one piece you can see this. This is my part, but we all need to come together to complete the picture. So, I find working in an inter-, multi-, trans-disciplinary way very natural, especially when we talk about unpredictable human behaviours. The conversations we have about the developed researchers in AI are some of the most fruitful, most engaging and most out-there approaches. Learning about perception is not only about problem solving. Unfortunately, much of the time, people look at the more technological disciplines as problem solving in that they focus on resolving technical problems. We do that in the Arts too, I was doing that as a media artist for years. You have to have the technical problem-solving angle in order to make the multiplicity of parts work. If you have an interactive installation with technical problems, you can't see their work. Their work doesn't exist, you know. And again, it's the technological apparatus that needs to work for the philosophical apparatus to be realised. Page Break Q8. How are our voices missing as essential input? DTT: I agree, that's great, Mari, thank you. You also spoke about how we really understand this or highlighted people that we might bring into our groups to expand into a larger collaborative field. I think we are all beginning to understand this. But where do you think our voices are missing in this conversation? MV: I think it’s in numbers. I think voices like ours are missing because we’re at the beginning of something new that we are trying to translate from other, individual disciplines. So, media art is working with people to bring in a few contracts to explore this new discipline of social robotics. I think we want to see more big collaborations, and we want this to become the norm. We don't want to remain exotic. Right now, we are niche within a few groups around the world, a few very important groups around the world and it's great, but it will be better when we are mainstream. We are at the beginning of creating more awareness around this. We have to feel confident in our fields, within the media and interactive art, and contemporary directorship. That’s where there’s space for us not to change what we do, but to start contributing more in this new field transdisciplinary field. Not as AI experts, not as psychologists but as us: contemporary leaders, creative designers, innovative collaborators and, of course, artists. DTT: Yes, artists and curators that are interested in this kind of meeting point where people engage a technological agent. What happens in that space? It's a model for a society at large. It's about having a voice in the conversation, about implementing social systems within societal structures. By enacting the responsibility to create this social awareness about how things can be done, you create a much stronger inter-, multi- or trans-disciplinary approach. An approach that pioneers the human side. MV: It's not one size fits all, but it's about individuality within situational context. It's about experiential design as a better way of understanding people and their needs and their complexities. To me this is society. That's why the [larger] community don't call it creative robotics, a collage of social products created with robotics is what the lab stands for because we want to communicate creatively. That creativity needs to be deployed in many different fields. We can take it from the arts and influence different areas, but to me, creating a social space, having a voice and and generating awareness are the biggest things. DTT: Yes, I don't think there's enough awareness, but it’s good that we still have a platform. Maybe an interesting artwork in a museum over a toy robot or something between a Hollywood movie and a sci-fi book scenario. And well, we're still us. It's not a speculation but I like a spectacle. People are coming to museums or other experimental social spaces to engage with robots because they don't have the chance to engage with them in their everyday life. However, in a social or community setting, it's really safe to engage with robots. It's not strange because it’s a socially recognised setting that this is happening in. They're not going to come to a lab or an office to have a look at a robot, that would be too formal. MV: All these programs are extremely important. Very few people, even today, encounter a developing robot outside of labs, so I think activating social spaces are important. All these people that comprise the general have different backgrounds and are there to explore; not to be judged, not to be part of experiments. The event and the platform are there to create awareness. Not everything can be taken to such public spaces. But it's giving people a voice. Again, coming back to awareness; when you aware of something and you have an experience with something then you can be critical about it and raise your voice as to whether you like it or don’t. MV: With the National Facility, a space that can change modes, we can have all these experiences with immersive properties, like smell and touch, sight and sound. We can generate very important, very complex and very large data sets. But something like the Facility will never replace the terms of the engagement within community, the local library, the local gallery, the museum; social spaces that people take their kids to, that hosts a VIVID Ideas event in a neighbourhood centre. All these things are extremely important. DTT: The whole social awareness aspect, I think becomes part of our resource of helpful information. I think the cross-generational aspect is very important to how we design. What’s that technological interface? What are the maintainers? What’s the interface for our kids? To us, to our parents, to our grandparents? I think the next inquiry needs to be cross generationalwould you say your recent artworks are in the conversation about necessity of Multi- or Trans-disciplinarity? With arts being quite high in that conversation, or at least equal, would you say your key works were kind of developed at certain times? Do you even have key works in your mind? Or do you have any works that didn't really help the conversation at all? I wonder if, reflexively, there's things that stand out for you. MV: I have had exhibitions that have changed the way that I feel. And then I have exhibitions that it was my job to produce, so I did it. DTT: I have some dates marked here. 2003- 2011 and then what you're working on now. I wondered if it works like that for you, or if that's the art historian in me [categorising as a way to understand your process]. 00:25:08.570 --> 00:25:13.682 MV: The most important works, the seminal kind of works for me for my career and for my thinking…in terms of direction, the first one was The Red Armchair series (1996/97?). It was the first bit of interactive work. Then [maybe] probably Fish-Bird (2003?). My graduate work was responsive work. I might have to remind you we’re talking about 1996/97, when you would use a mouse to engage with works. But, back then I was building works with sensors that people could lean over and talk to, so they were quite progressive works. Fish-Bird was my graduate work. That was also [the subject of] my first show at PICA, my first time selected for a national show. In terms of changing others, not my thing own career, it would be Pin Cushion (2000). Then Fish-Bird. So, the question around multi- and trans-disciplinarity was there in 2000; and today I'm still asking it but now I use robotic vision to investigate [rather than projectors]. Also, with Still Life {!}, I use an organic interface, that of apples, with a digital character. And for Fish-Bird I use robotic vision for the first time with a still life, so it would be 1996-97; The Red Armchair 2000 and 2003; Pin Cushion 2003-5, it was finished in 2004 was the first time was exhibited at Ars Electronica and it was incredible. It’s now 16 years old and still touring. It's incredible, that's the only word I can say for it is that it's incredible and after Fish-Bird, Genie(?!) coming also. We have to embrace what they are meant to be. But it wasn't robotic, it was; a light sensitive screen that was around 2004, but that's different. It's important work in terms of the memory of this screen with crystals, and [regular] memory. But in terms of works to do with Robotics, Diamandini came out first in prototype; the first exhibition of anything was in 2011. We showed her as a prototype that people could tell you were operating in 2011 as part of ISEA in Istanbul. Kathy Cleland curated it and it was great because it was in the Taksim Square, in Istanbul [it has thousands and thousands of people passing through, as one of the busiest places]. So especially for a new work where we were recording how people understand how to operate her and you know how they move her [there is no performance or artefact?]. So that prototyping session influenced the movement in the kinetic language I developed for her here within codes for the work. Then Diamandini was in the V&A in 2012 or 13 [?!]. The other shows with Diamandini that we had were back to England too. A great show for her was also with Mike Stubbs at FACT in Liverpool [UK]. It was great because it was about modern work. She has a responsive and performative role that’s good to see, especially in an exhibition categorised as something other than being interactive. I thought it was a great place for her as she becomes a more political object when she is performative. [At the V&A] she was just responding to people in terms of avoiding them, but when she was doing this performance [at FACT] about modern life and work, she moves into the space and then it was a big projection of Facebook. Or of the very famous video artist Harun Farocki had his film Workers Leaving the Factory in 11 Decades (2006). 00:30:22.240 --> 00:30:27.757 MV: Because Diamandini stops at different parts of the exhibition, she then becomes the projection or focus of the work being exhibited. For example, with Farocki’s Workers Leaving the Factory in 11 Decades, she's covered with the work, so she and the work become a much more political conversation. And then there was a work that she looks at and explores the environment; including artefacts made in a factory by artist in China [?!]. I'm diverting from the conversation, but definitely Diamandini is a key work (2011-now). DTT: I think the work on the software you've developed for Re/Pair (2017), when you created When I Will See You Again (2017), it's quite important for me because it deals with the representation of memory and how its’ presence is different with robotics. I know that with some audience members, it had fairly devastating effects because it was an installation that you designed to be an immersion into Alzheimer’s, but I found it a fun work to pull together. What I remember is Iris (my producer) and I looking through websites and going to peoples’ houses to get the objects that you designed and described. I even pulled some from my own house as well (blankets and tables). And then in the Living Laboratory setting and the invitation for evaluative feedback from curators; they would just sit, they would get lost just sitting on the bed. And it's because often they related to the work so strongly because they know somebody with Alzheimer's or dementia. It affected them and I don't know what happened with the Beijing Triennale, but it was accepted [so the work already has a trajectory from ideation to prototype]. I don't know if Brad [Miller] did any evaluation, but it would be interesting to understand the acquisition process with him; to understand the effect of the work on the audience if he did any observation.