Title: An optimisation-based robot platform for the generation of action paintings

Authors: Michael Raschke, Katja Mombaur, Alexander Schubert

Addresses: Institute for Visualization and Interactive Systems (VIS), University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart 70569, Germany; Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg 69120, Germany. ' Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg 69120, Germany; LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France. ' Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg 69120, Germany

Abstract: We present the robot JacksonBot which is capable to produce paintings inspired by the action painting style of Jackson Pollock. A dynamically moving robot arm splashes colour from a container at the end effector on the canvas. The paintings produced by this platform rely on a combination of the algorithmic generation of robot arm motions with random effects of the splashing colour. The robot can be considered as a complex and powerful tool to generate artworks programmed by a user. Desired end effector motions can be prescribed either by mathematical functions, by point sequences or by data glove motions. We have evaluated the effect of different shapes of input motions on the resulting painting. To compute the robot joint trajectories necessary to move along a desired end effector path, we use an optimal control-based approach to solve the inverse kinematics problem.

Keywords: action painting; art robots; Jackson Pollock; algorithmic motion generation; optimisation; dynamic motion; inverse kinematics; arts; technology; robotic art; robot motion; colour splashing; robot trajectories; optimal control; robot control; robot kinematics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJART.2011.039844

International Journal of Arts and Technology, 2011 Vol.4 No.2, pp.181 - 195

Published online: 11 Jan 2015 *

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