Originally appeared in Art Journal, Vol. 56, N. 3, Digital Reflections: The Dialogue of Art and Technology, Special issue on Electronic Art, Johanna Drucker, (ed.), CAA, NY, 1997, pp. 60-67. Republished in Portuguese in: Cadernos da Pós-Graduação do Instituto de Artes da Unicamp, Ano 2, Vol. 2, N. 2, 1998, pp. 18-28. Republished (abridged, in English and Spanish) in art.es, nº 4, July/August 2004, Madrid, pp. 50-53. Republished in English and Korean in Nam June Paik Reader #2, December 2011, Korea, pp. 139-165.

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ROBOTIC ART

Eduardo Kac

As electronic media becomes more pervasive in today's culture, the role of robotics in contemporary art, along with video, multimedia, performance, telecommunications, and interactive installations, needs to be considered. In this article I propose to define a framework for the understanding and analysis of robotic art. I will discuss three pivotal art works from the 1960s that outlined the genesis of robotics in art and that formed the basis of the three main directions in which robotic art has developed. This article will also elucidate the new issues raised by current robotic artworks and clarify their relationship to the main paths defined by those three early works.

One of the most problematic issues of robotics in art is the very definition of what a robot is. Complicating matters, on the one hand, we have mythological traditions of various cultures. These traditions have originated fantastic synthetic creatures, such as the ancient Greek story of Galatea [1] --a statue brought to life by the goddess Aphrodite -- or the Jewish legend of the Golem, a speechless anthropoid made of clay by humans [2]. On the other hand, we find more recent literary traditions offering fictional profiles of automata, robots, cyborgs, androids, telerobots, and replicants. Intriguing literary artificial beings have excited the imagination of readers worldwide: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818); Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's "Future Eve" (1886); Gustav Meyrink's version of theGolem (1915), Karel Capek's robots in the play R.U.R. (which introduced in 1922 the world to the Czech word "robot"), Robert Heinlein's Waldo (1940), Isaac Asimov's Cutie (1941) -- to name a few [3]. The literary robotic canon is further expanded by the presence of robots in film: Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926), Fred Wilcox's Forbidden Planet (1956), George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). Television contributed to further popularize the image of the computing companion (Irwin Allen's Lost in Space, 1965 ), the cyborg (Harve Bennett's The Six Million Dollar Man, 1974 ), the sophisticated android and the evil mixture of flesh and electronics (current version of Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek, 1966).

Another aspect of the problem is the operational definition of robots as found in scientific research and industrial applications. The first commercial robots appeared in the early '60s in the United States, and in about twenty years developed a stronghold in industrial facilities around the world [4]. These reprogrammable manipulators easily handled tireless repetitive tasks. They increased productivity and prompted further research aimed at improving their efficiency in manufacturing plants. Industrial robots are programmed to perform a specific task, or set of tasks. It is clear that from this perspective robots are advanced computer-controlled electromechanical appliances.

If artists working with or interested in robotics cannot ignore mythological, literary, or industrial definitions of robots and artificial life forms, it is also true that these definitions do not directly apply to any given robotic art work [5]. Each artist explores robotics in particular ways, developing strategies that often hybridize robots with other media, systems, contexts, and life forms.

As artists continue to push the very limits of art, traditionally defined by discrete and inert hand-made objects, they introduce robotics as a new medium at the same time that they challenge our understanding of robots -- questioning therefore our premises in conceiving, building, and employing these electronic creatures. The fascination robots exert on the population at large has unexplored social, political, and emotional implications. These implications must be coupled, if they are to be properly understood in the contemporary art context, with the new aesthetic dimension of modeling behavior (the artist creates not only form but the actions and reactions of the robot in response to external or internal stimuli) and developing unprecedented interactive communicative scenarios in physical or telematic spaces (the object "perceives" the viewer and the environment).

The works highlighted in this article often evade any narrow definition of robotics -- except, perhaps, for the principle of giving precedence to behavior over form. Sticking to a narrow definition seems less important than the opportunity to trace parallels between strategies that foreground at times electronic creatures ("robotic art"), and at times a combination of organic and electronic ("cybernetic art") or the remote projection of a human subject onto a telerobot ("telepresence art"). Not only these art forms seem directly related conceptually, but they also appear hybridized in several works.

While prototypes of non-commercial robots were developed in the fifties, notably for entertainment and scientific research [6], it is not until the sixties that we see the first robotic art works. As developed in the '50s and '60s, kinetic art contributed to free sculpture from static form and reintroduced the machine at the heart of the artistic debate [7]. Particularly significant in this context is Nicolas Schöffer's CYSP 1 (Cybernetic Spatiodynamic Sculpture), from 1956 [8]. This pioneering interactive work, fixed to a base and built with sensors and analogue electronic components, produced different kinds of movements in response to the presence of observers. As it passed from the electro-mechanical domain to the electronic realm, Schöffer's work provided a bridge between kinetics and robotics. The transitional character of this work was well documented in the 1959 television program entitled "Robocybernétique" ("Robocybernetics"), transmitted live from Schöffer's Studio in Paris. Influenced by this context, and already opening up new directions that privileged complex interactive and behavioral concerns, three artworks created in the mid and late sixties stand as landmarks in the development of robotic art: Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe's Robot K-456 (1964), Tom Shannon's Squat (1966), and Edward Ihnatowicz's The Senster (1969-1970). While these works are very significant in their own right, they acquire a particular meaning when re-considered today, since seen together they also configure a triangle of new aesthetic issues that has continually informed the main directions in robotic art. With Paik and Abe's Robot K-456 , a humorous and politically-charged piece, the problems of remote control, free-mobility and interaction with the public are introduced. With Shannon's Squat we see the first interactive artwork that is an organic and inorganic hybrid, raising the question of cybernetic entities so relevant to current debates. In Ihnatowicz's The Senster, also an interactive piece, we find the first instance of behavioral autonomy in art, in which a given personality is assigned to the robot, which then responds to humans and changing situations on its own.

Named after Mozart's piano concerto (Köchel's number 456), Paik and Abe's 20-channel remote-controlled anthropomorphic robot first performed in a private space (Robot Opera, at Judson Hall, in collaboration with Charlotte Moorman) and on the streets, both as part of the Second Annual New York Avant-Garde Festival, in 1964. As Paik guided it through the streets, K-456 played through its mouth (a radio speaker) a recording of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and excreted beans. On video we can clearly see the wondrous dynamism of the robot's eyes (toy airplane propellers), of its legs dragging forward, and of its twirling Styrofoam breasts [9]. Paik approaches robotic art with a peculiar sense of humor, finding in these creatures a caricature of humanity, not a cause of fear (of lost jobs, of erased identity). Reflecting on the role of robotics in the economy, and the differences between robotics in art and industry, he stated: "Now, my robot ... generally people say that robots are created to decrease people's work ... but my robot is there to increase the work for people because we need five people to make it move for ten minutes, you see. Ha ha." [10]

K-456, which is now in the Hauser and Wirth private collection, in Zürich, was reactivated once again in 1982, when the Whitney Museum of American Art hosted Paik's retrospective exhibition. On the occasion, the artist staged an accident in which the Robot K-456 was hit by a car. For this performance, titled "The First Catastrophe of the Twenty-First Century", K-456 was removed from its Museum pedestal and guided by the artist down the street to the intersection of 75th Street and Madison Avenue. When crossing the avenue, the robot was "accidentally" hit by an automobile driven by artist Bill Anastasi. With this performance Paik suggested the potential problems that arise when technologies collide out of human control. After the "collision", K-456 was returned to its pedestal in the Museum [11].

Less traumatic is the kind of contact enabled by Tom Shannon's work. Created only two years later, Shannon's Squat was a cybernetic system wiring a live plant to a robotic sculpture [12]. In this early form of cybernetic interactive art, Shannon enabled the electric potential of the human body to trigger an organic switch. When viewers touched the plant, the electricity was amplified and turned on the motors of the robotic sculpture, which then moved. On human-plant contact, Squat retracted and extended its three legs as well as its two arms, creating undulating motion and humming and chirping sounds. If the viewer touched the plant again, the piece returned to its resting state.

While tactile participation is crucial to Squat, in Ihnatowicz's work it is the voice and the proximity of viewers that prompt responsive behavior. Working in relative isolation in England, after immigrating from his native Poland and studying at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford, Edward Ihnatowicz (1926-1988), perhaps the least known of the three pioneers, created between 1969 and 1970The Senster, a biomorphic computer-controlled robotic creature with shy behavior [13]. This piece was shown at Philips' permanent showplace Evoluon, in Heindhoven, Holland, from 1970 to 1974, when it was dismantled. Built after the articulation of a lobster's claw, The Senster was about 15 feet long by 8 feet high and occupied a space of 1,000 cubic feet. Its head had sensitive microphones and motion-detectors, providing sensorial input that was processed by a digital Philips minicomputer in real time. The Senster's upper body consisted of six independent electro-hydraulic servo-mechanisms with six degrees of freedom. Responding to motions and sounds within one or two seconds, The Senster gently moved its head towards quieter and more subtle viewers. Loud and agitated viewers saw the creature shy away and protect itself from any harm. In its sensual, and apparently intelligent behavior, the piece was very engaging to a wide audience. While the debate on the use of computers in art at the time revolved around the creation of still or sequential images, and the use of static or mobile plotters to produce such images, Ihnatowicz merged software-based parametric behavior with hardware presence in a real space as he introduced the first computer-controlled robotic artwork. In other words, "The Senster" is the first physical work whose expression in space (its choices, reactions, and movements) is triggered by data processing (instead of sculptural concerns).

Further contributing to this nascent field, Norman White created Ménage (Household, or Family), in 1974, an installation with five light-scanning robots. This installation was comprised of four robots moving back and forth along separate ceiling tracks and a fifth robot positioned on the floor. Each creature had a scanner (which pointed itself toward strong light-sources) and a spotlight mounted at its center. As a result of the central position of their own light source, the ceiling robots had the tendency to keep staring at one another. However, despite the apparent simplicity of this arrangement, a more dynamic behavior emerged once their motors pulled them apart and the gaze-locking interplay resumed. If in the three pioneering works seen above the artists worked with individual robots, White tried to create a small robotic community that would already exhibit collective behavior. If Paik's, Shannon's, and Ihnatowicz's contribution to robotic art can be said to be circumscribed to the pieces discussed above, White is the first artist to have consistently championed robotics as an art form throughout the years [14], producing a number of different and intriguing pieces, most notably Helpless Robot, a robot originally made in 1985 that converses with viewers and requests their assistance to spin it, changing its behavior in time if it gets more or less help. Norman White considers the Helpless Robot unfinished (possibly unfinishable), and since 1985 he has modified it many times. Helpless Robot was shown publicly for the first time in 1988. In its current state (1997), it is controlled by two cooperating computers, both programmed by White. One computer is responsible for tracking the angular position of the rotating section, and detecting human presence with an array of infrared motion detectors. The other computer analyzes this information in relation to past events, and generates an appropriate speech response. This work humorously reverses the polarity of robot-human relationships, asking humans to help an electronic creature conventionally designed to be a human aid.

Also working with sensors and microcontrollers (i.e., embedded digital controllers) [15] in interactive situations is James Seawright -- known for responsive kinetic sculptures [16] such as Watcher (1965-66) and Searcher (1966), and for early interactive installations (which he termed "reactive environments") such as Electronic Peristyle (1968) and Network III (1970). The latter must be highlited as a pioneering interactive computer installation, in which a digital minicomputer (PDP 8-L) translated the movement of viewers over pressure-sensitive plates into flashing light patterns on the ceiling. In the '80s Seawright developed computer-controlled robotic works in which the software-based comportment of the piece seems to achieve a sophisticated level of behavior as it interacts with the environment and the public. His Electronic Garden #2 (1983) is comprised of five computer-controlled robotic flowers. Responding to climate parameters, such as temperature and humidity, these electronic flowers were originally installed in a public space as an indoor garden. Viewers could also alter their behavior by pushing buttons that modified the program installed in the custom-built microprocessor. These electronic flowers suggest the possibility of a harmonious integration between humans, nature and technology, at the same time that they poeticize responsive electronics in analogy with ornamental plants. Taking this concept further, Seawright created in 1984 House Plants, two computer-controlled robotic flowers [17]. House Plants used a computer (a custom-built microprocessor) to give the electronic plants their environmentally-responsive behavior. While the taller plant opened its four petals at night reacting to changing light levels, the shorter, domed plant produced a peculiar sound pattern as small disks opened and closed. Both plants displayed dynamic blinking light patterns: the taller one on the inside of the petals (made visible when opened), and the shorter one on the surface of its spherical top. If placed in a gallery setting, both plants were programmed to exhibit their behavior simultaneously. Cybernetic botany is a theme that has been explored by the artist in multiple pieces and in different versions of single pieces.

With its emphasis on behavior, it was only a matter of time for robotic art to expand its realm of possibilities into theatrical and performative events. Two of the most prominent artists of the generation that emerged in the '70s who work with robotics are Mark Pauline and Stelarc. In 1980 Pauline founded the Survival Research Laboratories, or SRL, a collaborative team that since then has created multiple-machine performances combining music, explosives, radio-controlled mechanisms, violent and destructive action, fire, liquids, animal parts, and organic materials [18]. Two of the early key collaborators were Matthew Heckert and Eric Werner. Since 1980 SRL developed machines and robots and staged performances in Europe and the US, all too numerous and varied to be fully covered here. These works are marked by visceral violence and entropic choreography, often culminating in a cathartic self-destructive extravaganza. These robotic spectacles of discomfort, fear, and actual destruction are meant as commentaries on social issues, particularly in regard to ideological control, abuse of force, and technological domination. In 1981, for example, Pauline mechanically animated dead animals, evoking Frankensteinian fears and suggesting the larger-than-human powers of technology. Rabot, for example, was produced by grafting a mechanical exoskeleton to the entire body of a dead rabbit, causing it to walk backwards. These and many other large and powerful machines, animal-machine hybrids, and robotic or computer-controlled devices have animated SRL's loud and often controversial pyrotechnic events, such as "Crime Wave", realized on November of 1995 in San Francisco, or more recently, "The Unexpected Destruction of Elaborately Engineered Artifacts", realized on March of 1997 in Austin, Texas. More than fifteen years later, Paik's 1982 staged accident can be reconsidered in the context of SRL's work, which gives emphasis to the aesthetic principle of technologies colliding out of human control.

By contrast, Stelarc has focused his work on his own body. He attached a third (robotic) arm to his right arm, only to expand his suspension events [19] into complex performances that have evolved cyborg and post-human metaphors, raising the issue of evolution and adaptation in our highly technological environment [20]. The Third Hand, a five-finger robotic hand activated by abdominal and leg muscles, was built in 1981 with the assistance of Imasen Denki, and based on a prototype by Ichiro Kato. Among Stelarc's first robotic performances in 1981 were The Third Hand (Tamura Gallery, Tokyo) and Deca-Dance (Komai Gallery, Tokyo). In The Third Hand performance, the artist held a sheet of paper with his left hand and explored the possibility of writing THE THIRD HAND simultaneously with his right hand and his third hand. In Deca-Dance, he experimented with human and robotic choreographic gestures. Since 1981 Stelarc has been creating amplified body performances in which he expands the power and reach of the human body by wiring it to electronic devices and telecommunications systems. In these performances he has combined the Third Hand with many other technological components, including sensing devices conventionally used in medicine. On occasion Stelarc has also performed in the company of industrial robotic arms. More recently he has also used prosthetic technologies that physically wire his body and enable remote and direct muscle stimulation, which result in involuntary gestures and body motions uncontrollable by the artist.

Stelarc is among the artists that don't circumscribe the experience of the work to one's immediate perceptual field. The absence of the object stimulates a particular kind of experience: it heightens awareness of the remote in detriment to local vision. Remoteness creates a new situation for performance, robotics, and interactive art, one that could be called "drama of distance". As a consequence of my own desire to push telecommunications art into a more physical domain, since the 1980s I have been developing what I call telepresence art, coupling robotics and telecommunications into new forms of communicative experiences that enable participants to project their presence into a geographically distant place. Other artists have pursued this basic premise with very engaging results.

In 1993 the Austrian group X-Space (Gerfried Stocker and Horst Hörtner, with Arnold Fuchs, Anton Maierhofer, Wolfgang Reinisch and Jutta Schmiederer) created the interactive robotic installation "Winke Winke" [21], first shown on top of the only skyscraper in Graz, on the building of Austrian Telecommunication (Posthochhaus in Graz). This project made reference to one of the earliest forms of telecommunications network: the optical telegraph (1794), precursor to the electric telegraph. In a gallery or other public space, the participant approached a computer terminal connected to a robot placed on the roof of the building. Each message typed on the terminal is translated by the robot into signs of the international marine semaphore system: the robot actually produces these signs by moving the flags attached to its arms. On the roof of another location, in straight line of sight with the robot, a video camera with a telephoto lens recorded the signs made by Winke Winke. The pictures were fed into a computer, which read the position of the flags and converts the signs back into words. Digital telecommunications comes full circle with the optical telegraph, suggesting new beginnings. The expression "winke winke" is Austrian baby-language for "bye-bye".

In 1995, Ken Goldberg, Joseph Santarromana, George Bekey, Steven Gentner, Rosemary Morris, Carl Sutter, and Jeff Wiegley, collaborated to create the TeleGarden, a Web telepresence installation [22]. The TeleGarden enabled anyone on the Web to plant and water seeds in a real living garden using an industrial robot arm. This garden, 6' in diameter, soon filled with marigolds, peppers, and petunias. Participants, who became 'members' of this virtual cooperative, could also plant seeds, water and discuss coop policy via an online chat system. The project explored the evolution of community on the Web, in particular the analogy with the Agrarian revolution which established the conditions for cultural communities.

Also in 1995, Nina Sobell and Emily Hartzell, working in collaboration with New York University Center for Advanced Technology engineers and computer scientists, created Alice Sat Here. In this piece, a camera-equipped wheelchair was steered by local and remote participants, with sequential uploads to the Web [23]. Sobell and Hartzell worked with New York University engineer and computer scientists to create this telepresence installation, originally shown at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York. While local participants were able to sit on and steer Alice's Throne (the wheelchair), remote visitors could control camera direction. A monitor in the gallery's front window showed real-time video from the point of view of the wheelchair-mounted wireless camera, which was then displayed as sequential stills on the Web. Touchpads in the front window surrounded the monitor. Participants pressing the touchpads were caught in the act of controlling the throne's camera: their images were captured by the small camera mounted atop the monitor. The throne itself was not controlled remotely, but by people actually driving it around. The small camera mounted on top of the monitor overlapped the street participant's image with the image captured from the point of view of the wheelchair-mounted camera prior to the Web upload. This piece touched on the multiple levels of control (of observation, navigation, and image capture) as participants oscillated between physical space and cyberspace.

If on the one hand telepresence art places human cognitive processes on remote robotic bodies, on the other we find artists that still pursue issues of autonomy of the robotic body in space. Simon Penny, for example, created in 1996 his autonomous robot Petit Mal. The title of this piece is a medical term that refers to a momentary loss of consciousness. First designed in 1989, Petit Mal begun to be built in 1993 [24]. As an autonomous robotic artwork it explores architectural space and pursues and reacts to people. Its behavior is neither anthropomorphic nor zoomorphic, but is unique to its electronic nature. It has three ultrasonic sensors and three body-heat sensors that allow it to realize the presence of humans near it. Petit Mal was designed to be lightweight, durable and mechanically efficient, which gave it a "laboratory prototype" physiognomy. By covering parts of the robot's body with domestic printed vinyl tablecloth, the artist intended to change its appearance. Petit Mal consists of a pair of bicycle wheels that support a pair of pendulums suspended on a single axis. The top pendulum nests a processor, sensors and logic power supply. The bottom pendulum houses motors and motor power supply. The inner pendulum keeps the sensors in a vertical position despite the swing that results from acceleration. Petit Mal functions autonomously in a public environment for many hours before battery replacement is needed.

The works outlined here suggest that at the same time that robotics has matured into an art form, since its first introduction in the 1960s, it has been quickly appropriated and incorporated into other forms, such as performance, installation, dance, earthworks, theater, and telepresence pieces. Today artists such as Margot Apostolos, Ted Krueger, Ken Rinaldo, Chico MacMurtrie, Marcel.li Antúnez Roca, Martin Spanjaard, Ulrike Gabriel, Louis-Philippe Demers and Bill Vorn, among many others, are developing a complex and fascinating body of work in robotic art, pushing it into new directions [25]. Remote control, cybernetic entities, and authonomous behavior, as first outlined by Paik, Shannon, and Ihnatowicz, define the three key directions that have informed the development of robotics in art. Today, as artistic freedom promotes robotic diversity, the understanding of this triangular framework is essential to enable us to continue to explore the history, the theory, and the creation of robotic art.

NOTES

1 - Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen. The nature of Greek myths (London : Penguin, 1990).

2 - Idel, Moshe. Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid (Albany: SUNY, 1990).

3 - Shelley; Mary W. Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text (Oxford: 1998); de l'Isle-Adam, Villiers. Tomorrow's Eve (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982); Meyrink,Gustav. Two German supernatural novels: The Golem and The man who was born again (New York: Dover, 1976); Capek, Capek, Karel. R.U.R -- Rossum's Universal Robots and the Insect Play (New York, Oxford: Oxford Un. Press, 1961); Heinlein, Robert. Waldo and Magic, Inc. (New York: Ballantine, 1986); Asimov, Isaac. "Reason", first published in Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1941, pp. 33-45. Available in Asimov, I. I, Robot (New York, Bantam Books: 1991), pp. 56-81.

4 - Sadamoto, Kuni (editor). Robots in the Japanese Economy: Facts about Robots and Their Significance (Tokyo: Survey Japan, 1981); Schodt, Frederik. Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming of Robotopia (New York: Kodansha International LTD., 1988); Hunt, Daniel. Understanding Robotics (San Diego: Academic Press, 1990).

5 - Burnham, Jack. Beyond Modern Sculpture (New York: George Braziller, 1982), pp. 312-376. First published in 1968; Reichardt, Jasia. Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction (New York: Penguim Books, 1978), pp. 48-61; Kerckhove, Derrick. "L'espace de la robotique en art", in Poissant, Louise (ed.). Esthétiques des Arts médiatiques - T 1 (Montreal: Presse Universitaire du Québec, 1995), pp. 271-277.

6 - Alfred Chapuis & Edmond Droz, Automata: A Historical and Technological Study (New York: Central Book Company, Inc., 1958).

7 - Frank Popper. Origins and Development of Kinetic Art, (Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society, 1968).

8 - Schöffer, Nicolas. Nicolas Schöffer (Neuchatel: Editions du Griffon, 1963), p. 50.

9 - Paik, Nam June. A Tribute to John Cage, 1973 (60 min, Color, Sound).

10 - Sharp, Willoughby. "Artificial Metabolism - An interview with Nam June Paik", Video 80, N. 4, Spring 1982, p.14.

11 - Hanhardt, John. "Non-Fatal Strategies: The Art of Nam June Paik in the Age of Postmodernism", in Stoos, Toni and Kellein, Thomas (eds.). Nam June Paik: video time, video space (New York: Abrams, 1993), p. 79. Capturing Paik's unique sense of humor, Hanhardt quotes the artist, saying in a television interview on the ocasion, that K-456 "was twenty years old and had not its bar mitzvah."

12 - Squat was first documented in Pontus Hulten, K. G. The machine as seen at the end of the Mechanical Age (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1968), p. 193. See also Burnham [5]. One year later, Shannon created a pioneering telepresence concept with force feedback, and in 1972 he filed a patent request with the U.S. Patent office. The patent was granted in 1973. It consisted of a pressure sleeve wrapped around the telephone hand set. This grip attachment responded to pressure and volume variations created by the gripping action of a remote interlocutor. See: Thomas Shannon, Telephysical Phone System, U.S. Patent Nº 3,780,225 (1973). For a comprehensive catalogue on Shannon's work, see: Catherine Monnier, ed., Thomas Shannon (Geneva: Galerie Eric Franck, 1991).

13 - Benthall, Jonathan. Science and Technology in Art Today (London: Thames and Hudson, 1972), 78-83; Ihnatowicz, Edward. "Towards a Thinking Machine", in Leavitt, Ruth, Artist and Computer (New York: Harmony, 1976), pp. 32-34.

14 - Derrick de Kerckhove, "Les Robots de Norman White", Art Press 122, 1988, pgs. 21-22; White, Norman. "A Casa dos Espelhos", in Domingues, Diana (ed.). A Arte no Século XXI (São Paulo: Unesp, 1997), pp. 45-48.

15 - Microcontrollers are microprocessors with built-in program-storage memory, RAM, and usually some peripheral devices (such as serial communications circuitry and timers).

16 - For an acount of Seawright's work between 65 and 68, see: Seawright, James. "Phenomenal Art: Form, Idea, and Technique", in Fry, Edward (ed.) On the Future of Art (New York: Viking, 1970), pp. 77-93. See also: Davis, Douglas. "James Seawright: The Electronic Style", in Art and The Future (New York: Praeger, 1975), pp. 153-156.

17 - Goodman, Cynthia. Digital Visions: Computers and Art (New York: Abrams, 1987), p. 135, pp. 138-143.

18 - Herman, C. and Ludacer, K.. "Rare Animals Trying to Breed; an interview with SRL", Lightworks, No. 17 Birmingham, Michigan, 1985, pp. 17-21; Jan, Alfred. "Survival Research Laboratories", High Performance, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1985, pp. 32-35; Pauline, Mark, "Interview with Mark Pauline", Re/Search, No. 6/7, 1991), pp.20-41. Dery, Mark. Escape Velocity (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996), pp. 115-131. See also the Survival Research Laboratories Web site: http://www.srl.org.

19 - Stelarc, Obsolete Body Suspensions (San Francisco: Contemporary Art Press, 1984).

20 - Stelarc. "Prosthetics, Robotics and Remote Existence: Postevolutionary Strategies", in Leonardo, Vol. 24, No. 5, 1991, pp. 591-595; Atzori, Paolo and Woolford, Kirk. "Extended-Body: Interview with Stelarc", CTheory (6 September 1995), http://www.ctheory.com/a29-extended_body.html. Walsh, Brecon. "I Ping the Body Electric", Mesh, N. 8/9, Autumn/Winter 1996, pp. 24-25; Stelarc. "Parasite Visions: Alternate, Intimate and Involuntary Experiences", Art & Design, N. 56, 1997, pp. 66-69.

21 - Schmiederer, Jutta (ed.). Cross Compilation (Graz: X-Space, 1994). n.p.n. This is a self-published catalogue documenting the group's work from 1991 to 1994.

22 - Goldberg, Ken et al. "The Tele-Garden: An Interactive Art Installation on the World Wide Web", in Siggraph Visual Proceedings (New York: ACM, 1995), p. 135; Burt, Jillian. "Serfing The Net", 21-C Scanning the Future, N. 2, 1996, pp. 65-69. Goldberg, Ken. "Telepistemology on the World Wide Web", in Kac, Eduardo (ed.), Telepresence.YLEM (Special issue), Vol. 17, N. 9, 1997, p. 3.

23 - Sobell, Nina and Hartzell, Emily. "ParkBench Public-Access Web Kiosks", Siggraph Visual Proceedings (New York: ACM, 1996), p. 135; Sobell, Nina and Hartzell, Emily. "VirtuAlice", in Kac, Eduardo (ed.), Telepresence.YLEM (Special issue), Vol. 17, N. 9, 1997, p. 5.

24 - Davis, K. D. "Dystopic Toys", World Art, N. 1, 1996, pp 30-33.

25 - Apostolos, M. K., "Robot Choreography: Moving in a new Direction", Leonardo, Vol. 23, N.1, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1990, pp. 25-29; Brill, L., "Art Robots: Artists of the Electronic Palette", AI Expert, January 1994, pp. 28-32; Krueger, Ted. "Autonomous Architecture", Digital Creativity, Vol. 9, N. 1, 1998, pp. 43-47; Giannetti, Claudia (ed.). Marcel.li Antúnez Roca: Performances, objetos y dibujos (Barcelona: MECAD, 1998), pp. 51-53, 60-61; Rinaldo, Ken and Grossman, Mark. "The Flock", Siggraph Visual Proceedings (New York: ACM, 1993), p. 120; Demers, Louis-Philippe and Vorn, Bill. "Espace Vectoriel", Siggraph Visual Proceedings (New York: ACM, 1993), p. 122; Spanjaard, Martin. "Adelbrecht", Siggraph Visual Proceedings (New York: ACM, 1993), p. 166; Dery, Mark. Escape Velocity (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996), pp. 131-136; McGough, Laura. "Prosthetic Aesthetics", Mesh, N. 8/9, Autumn/Winter 1996, pp. 11-13.

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