What is it about?

This paper demonstrates the results of a collaboration with the art studio Pors & Rao, exploring the use of Functional Reactive Programming (FRP) in creating robotic artworks. Traditionally, programming robots requires a deep understanding of low-level code, making it challenging for artists without a background in computer science. The research demonstrates how FRP offers a modular and intuitive approach to controlling robotic behaviors, allowing artists to focus on their creative expression while the complex technical aspects are hidden. In particular, the paper examines how FRP was applied to the robotic artwork “Edge Beings”, highlighting how FRP enables a more understandable program code of the robot controller.

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Why is it important?

Artists like Pors & Rao create highly dynamic and responsive robotic artworks, which typically require complicated programming. The use of FRP could simplify this complexity and make robotic control more accessible, allowing artists to express their creative visions without requiring extensive technical expertise.

Perspectives

I was pleased to see that implementing the control software for the artwork “Edge Beings” was not only possible using FRP was not only possible, but the resulting code was more elegant and understandable for the artists. I hope that this work, and other work like it, will allow artists in the near future to extend their inherent need to express elegance and beauty in their work to their programs as well.

Prof. Dr. Farhad Mehta
OST Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences

The collaboration with Pors & Rao shows that FRP leads to better understandable control software code. This allows the artists to work more closely with the programmers and gain more control over the realization of their visions. This research points toward a future where programming is no longer a barrier but a tool for artistic freedom, making robotics a more fun and exciting medium.

Eliane Irène Schmidli
OST – Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Demo: The Fun of Robotic Artwork, September 2024, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3677996.3678286.
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