This week, I attended the Introductory lecture as well as the first practical class of the year.
I found the drawing robot mentioned in the lecture very fascinating, impressed how design and technology have been blended in this one project. After hearing about this robot, I delved into research about other automated machines that are able to produce art. 'Ai-Da' is an Artificial Intelligence robot that is able to draw and paint people from sight. 'Ai-Da' was named after programmer Ada Lovelace who created the super realistic (and super creepy) robot. The thing that intrigues me most about these robots is how they bridge the separation between art and technology but rather than using digital mediums like many artists currently do, it is mechanical artists using traditional mediums.
In the lecture, we also talked about hand gestures and how they communicate meaning. This made me think about how greetings are different between cultures and even within cultures. Being of Croatian heritage, it is expected to kiss the person you are greeting on the cheek. However, on the coast, it is expected that you kiss the other person twice whereas inland, it is expected that you only kiss them once. I found this interesting because it shows that gestures can mean different thing and kissing someone the wrong amount of times in any region is seen as either excessive or inadequate depending on where you are.
We also completed the 'Typeface in my Pocket' activity during our practical class. Initially, everyone in the class used an array of pens or straight objects to create their name out of objects they had in their possession. All the letterforms looked similar and static. It wasn't until we were instructed to find letterforms within objects that unique typefaces started coming together. I enjoyed this activity as it encouraged us to look at everyday objects a different way, trying to see more in what we use on a daily basis. It was quite hard to construct my name out of the objects I had because honestly, I mainly just had pens. However, after looking very closely at objects like my wallet, chargers and keychains, I was able to find some letterforms.
I proceeded to make my name and after this, my table group and I created a complete alphabet out of all the things we had with us. We chose the best letters from our names and added those to our alphabet, then we manipulated some of the other objects such as lanyards and cords to create the remaining letterforms.
Typeface designed by Erika, Stella, Rikki, Tanya, Brooke, Emily and Purita
Cowan, K. and Cowan, K., 2019. Meet Ai-Da – The World's First Robot Artist, Capable Of Drawing People From Life. [online] Creative Boom. Available at: <https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/meet-ai-da-the-worlds-first-robot-artist-capable-of-drawing-people-from-life/> [Accessed 7 March 2020].
