The Drawbots.

In 2005 an international, multi-disciplinary, inter-institutional group of researchers began a three-year research project that is attempting to use evolutionary and adaptive systems methodology (genetic algorithms, neural networks, etc…) to make an embodied robot that can exhibit creative behaviour by making marks or drawing (in the most general sense). The research is popularly known as the DrawBots Project. The research group is composed of computer and cognitive scientists, philosophers, artists, art theorists and historians. One outcome of the project will be a large-scale art installation of a group of DrawBots. Other outcomes will include the various research publications reflecting the vested interests of the group both as independent researchers and as a group. There are a number of motivations for the project including the production of machine-created art and the exploration of whether it is possible to develop (minimally) creative artificial agents and the research has two, mutually dependent, contextual frameworks. One concerns methodologies for making an agent that has the potential for manifesting autonomous creative behaviour. The second concerns methodologies for recognising such behaviour. Another emphasis is attempting to place this work in an art historical context. Amongst the key concepts that the project is examining are: personality, autonomy, value, signature, purpose, novelty, embodiment, social context, environmental interaction, ownership and so on…