A Machine That Paints What It Hears

Craft & Design Workshop

Check out this incredible Interactive Robotic Painting Machine by artist and composer Benjamin Grosser. This machine takes in sound as an input and outputs paintings:

This machine uses artificial intelligence to paint its own body of work and to make its own decisions. While doing so, it listens to its environment and considers what it hears as input into the painting process. In the absence of someone or something else making sound in its presence, the machine, like many artists, listens to itself.

[via Adafruit]

12 thoughts on “A Machine That Paints What It Hears

  1. Chris Hamlin says:

    How much of its input data is just the noise from it’s own servos? It would be interesting to put the microphone in another room and observe how that changes the character of the paintings. 

  2. Anonymous says:

    well this removes the need for expensive artists :P

  3. Anonymous says:

    @facebook-1219680029:disqus Check out the artist’s page on the project to see a video of the machine in action as part of a musical work.  http://bengrosser.com/projects/interactive-robotic-painting-machine/

  4. Mats Engstrom says:

    At 02:16 in the video a piezo transducer mounted on one of the steppers can be seen. Any idea what it does there?   Stepping feedback?  Cancelling it’s own noise? 

  5. AMalePoet says:

    Seems that a directional mic ( as apposed to an omni directional kind) and sound foam would serve this better. Perhaps human speech or some other set sound source would bring it out of the “look a paining machine” robot vibe it has. Not too many steps away from the stained thing the cleaning lady washed away in the museum last week.    

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Matt Richardson is a San Francisco-based creative technologist and Contributing Editor at MAKE. He’s the co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi and the author of Getting Started with BeagleBone.

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