Boston Dynamics robot dogs will be painters to exhibit in Australia

Another technology joins the well-known Dall-E2, Midjourney, and other AI rendering tools that have terrified painters and illustrators around the world: now has three Boston Dynamics robot dogs Trained by Polish plastic artist Agnieszka Pilat for four months, the artist will produce live works throughout the exhibition. NGV Triennial 2023.

During the event held by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia from 3 December 2023 to 7 April 2004, three cybernetic pets normally produced for investigation and information gathering tasks, perform a “solid time study”, art installation typically designed for a period.

The biggest difference, according to the curators of NGV 2023, The robot dogs will paint by themselves without any human intervention. The performance to be accompanied by the audience is an upgraded version of Pilat’s work, who imagines these works created by artificial intelligence to be revered as a primitive art expression made by robots in the future.

Why did the artist decide to train robot dogs to paint?

Pilat’s first contact with robot dogs from Boston Dynamics, a company acquired by Hyundai in 2021 – He went to paint a portrait of the company’s most famous model, Spot. Satisfied with the power of the machines, the artist soon adopted one of these spots and began living with him in New York, naming it Basia.

Specializing in portraying technological themes to explore the relationship between humans and machines in the 21st century, Pilat describes himself as a techno-optimist and robot dogs as “players” and “partners of humanity.”

Agnieszka says on Instagram that the purpose of her job is to give a voice to technology. That way, training Boston Dynamics’ dogs would be equivalent to the work Diego Rivera did for the working class. Can he say this by adapting the famous Spanish muralist? Are robots the engine of society and do they deserve to be valued and respected?