Dear Eduardo,
Thank you for your message. Yes the robot doesn't draw anything like as well
as you! I was looking at some of your drawings recently (architectural -
nice). I'm going down the same track as you on the role of drawing in
design. The differences are
we see the role of the 'robot drawer' differently. Rather than being seen as
an artist, the robot can be viewed as test equipment for theories about the
biological basis of how we are creative and how drawing is part of that
process.
For me, the traditional (and common in the Design field) theories about how
humans draw and are creative are not very believable. They feel a little bit
like cargo-cult explanations. A better understanding of the physical
processes of how people draw seems likely to be more helpful in the longer
term. It could also be helpful in developing better education programs to
teach people to draw.
My feeling is the current problems in this area are because we've based
theory on people's subjective experiences of drawing, and we should move
urgently to distance design theories from designers subjective
interpretation or self-reflective analysis of design, drawing and
creativity.
An alternative to following the traditional way of viewing drawing is to
identify physical theories about how people draw and then make a robot
drawer machine to test those theories. This seems to be what the UL people
have done. How successfully it works as a theory testbed isn't clear from
the article. A drawing isn't obviously a proof of anything.
It's not surprising at the early stages of theorymaking (or early stages of
creating the test equipment) if outcomes are not so great. As a testing
process of theories of how we draw, though, this can still be useful. It
will be interesting to see how it progresses and whether we get better
understanding and can make better education programs to teach people to draw
or design better.
I'm wondering would be how the robot drawer designers might include the
equivalent to emotional processes.
Robot footballers seemed to do better with even a simplistic emotional-based
decision system. Aaron Sloman and his group at Birmingham have been working
in this area for some time. There is a nice review at
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/sloman.iqcs01.pdf
Perhaps we can have the best of both worlds: humans who are great artists
and designers AND better theories that will enable improved support and
education. It seems the 'robot drawer' might offer an alternative path and
could open up a better way forward than has been possible with traditional
approaches.
Warm regards,
Terry
===
Dr. Terence Love, PhD, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM
Love Design and Research
Tel/Fax: +61 (0)8 9305 7629
Mobile: +61 (0)434 975 848
[log in to unmask]
www.love.com.au
===
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduardo
Corte Real
Sent: Tuesday, 6 April 2010 6:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Life drawing robot offers insight into art, design, creativity
and aesthetics
Dear Terry,
The problem with computer art has been and still is (looking at the
example you gave) what computer scientists consider to be art.
That is not a good sketch! And street artists are not creative or great
artists. If you want to see good life sketches go to my blog and compare
with that random spastic photographic attempt of drawing.
Apart from that, for me the interesting problem is not "robots that can
sketch" (poorly, let me be clear) but why can't you teach some humans to
sketch (even as poorly as that). And come to think about it, why
sketching and drawing is so often forgot as the core knowledge producing
device in Design?
Cheers,
Eduardo Côrte-Real
Doctor Arch
Scientific Board President IADE, Lisbon
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