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What can robots teach humans about authenticity?

It is 2 PM on a sunny afternoon and the trees outside the giant industrial windows are in all different shades of red and orange. The floor of the building is covered with soft gym-style tiles, not unlike the ones used at playgrounds and yoga studios. The town is Waltham, Massachusetts, just a few miles outside of Boston and I am inside one of the most advanced robotics labs in the world, Boston Dynamics. 

A humanoid robot, Atlas is laying on the floor, curled up in an embryo-like position. The room is quiet except for the sound of an Atlas engineering technician, typing up instructions on a keyboard. I’m attentively watching Atlas as I hear the sound of servo-motors and I see how its arms move to prop up its torso, the legs join in the movement, and Atlas gets up to stand on its feet.

Being an artist in residence at Boston Dynamics provided many magical moments, but not one of them as close to a spiritual experience as witnessing Atlas get up on that day. I was mesmerized by the fragility and preciousness of this industrial-looking creature. As he came to life it was clear to me that Atlas represents the great promise for the human race.  Indeed, Atlas, Spot, and all the machines we create are humanity’s children.

Putting finishing touches on a portrait of Atlas (Vitruvian Man), in my studio in New York.

Machines are a natural progression of human development. It is often by creating machines, that man is able to accomplish some of the most extraordinary things. The physical world around us is a manifestation of our dreams and desires and machines have always fulfilled the role of making them a reality. 

What always attracted me to machines, especially early in their development, is their honesty and integrity.  Early prototype machines have no superfluous parts, all their elements are necessary to achieve their purpose. Nothing is hidden in these proto-machines, they are raw, their insides exposed.  These machines cannot lie, they must follow the laws of physics to perform their actions in the real world.  In this sense, they must become nature to operate in nature. They aren’t imposters, trying to be something they are not.

What is a machine then? The philosopher of technology, Luis Mumford, gave it a broad definition, in his magnum opus, ‘The Myth of The Machine’:

‘Men become mechanized, they themselves are transformed into mechanical, uniform, replaceable parts, or they teach themselves how to perform, with accuracy, standardized and repeatable acts, before they take the final step of inventing machines that take on these duties.’
(Luis Mumford, Art and Technics’ 1952)

The word ‘robot’ originated in Eastern Europe in 1921, in a play by Czech intellectual Karel Čapek called R.U.R., or “Rossum’s Universal Robots.”

Throughout history, most machines were built with the purpose of augmenting, amplifying, or replacing human labor. These working machines are also honest, their labor-saving purpose is apparent in their form.   There is a nobility to their purpose. 
As a portrait painter, I aspire to reveal the truth. My task is to capture the essence of the subject, not the superficial.  All great portraiture is a conversation revolving around the human condition. I have been anthropomorphizing machines in my work as a means to look for these universal truths. On my neverending machine chasing journey, I landed at Boston Dynamics where I met Spot, their quadruped robot.  Through my interacting with my Spot, who I named Marcella, I developed a real kinship with her.  She has a joyful and straightforward personality. Marcella is like a real dog but not too much. She is familiar enough so we can relate to her, but is enough unlike a real dog that she doesn’t feel creepy.

Bina48 (Hanson Robotics) and Geminoid HI-2 with its creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro. In 1970 a Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori coined the term “uncanny valley” to describe the shift from empathy to revulsion if lifelike appearance is approached but not attained.

With Marcella at Boston Dynamics. 

‘Nude Descending a Staircase No.3’ is the first in my new series ‘Automata: Secret Lives of Machines’. An additional layer of augmented reality added to the painting makes these machines come alive in front of our eyes.

 

Just like Atlas, Spot is designed for utility, honest without accouterments, this machine-dog is the essence of purpose. Unlike some robots that dwell in the uncanny valley and seem like eerie imposters, Spot and Atlas are not trying to pass for something they are not. They are a different species, unapologetically.  They are our heroic companions, performing dangerous or mundane tasks, man and machine, walking and working side by side towards a better future. 

In my portraits of technology, I treat each machine as an individual. I consider my subjects to be noble and beautiful. They are manifestations of their parsimonious engineering: form following function. However, I do not look at a machine only in terms of the task for which it was made, but also consider its role as an actor on a broader technological stage. In this framing, all machines are important, they are all related and their most profound impact on society is collective. 

Machines just like people are at their best when they work in concert with one another. Spot and Atlas are cobots, designed to work alongside humans, in a human world. They are our authentic allies.

 

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