BeBOT

About This Project

This art installation it’s the result of the first collaboration between our company BEHIND and the artist Leonel Moura.

Born on December 26, 1948 in Lisbon, Portugal, Leonel Moura is a conceptual artist whose work shifted in the late 1990’s from photo based work to Artificial Intelligence and Robotic art.

Since then he has produced several Painting Robots and the Robotarium, a zoo for robots. RAP (Robotic Action Painter) (2006) a robot that makes drawings based on emergence and stigmergy, decides when the work is ready, and signs it, is displayed as a permanent installation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Other works include interactive installations, swarm paintings and sculptures and the adaptation of the play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) from Karel Capek, with 3 robots performing aside 3 human actors, premiered in São Paulo in 2010.

The BeBot is a swarm of robots built for the Astana Expo2017.

They were made robust and smart as they will perform continuously for 3 months.
I have also favor the performance elements, such as walk, led color lights and sounds, as well as an easy assistance. Each robot detects its own color (blue, red or green) and reacts to it. To start the process they make some initial lines if color is not found for a certain period of time. This means that when the canvas starts to be filled with color the random behavior stops.

In such a fashion small groups of robots from 4 to 9 can generate unique paintings based on emergent behavior and stigmergy.

The exhibition “Artists&Robots” was curated by the Parisian Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais and it will take place at the New Art Center of Astana. It opened the 10 of June.