Robotic workshop 2014

The Summer Semester has just finished, and as every year, the Robotic workshop happened.

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The experience is literally a three-days-long journey toward the heart of the machine, in which the usual rational distance between human and mechanic is simply erased.

This year’s edition happened from June 12th to 14th at Time’s Up, an artistic collective based in the harbor of Linz, active in a very broad spectrum of activities, productions and theories. They define themselves as a “Laboratory for the construction of experimental situations”, that already explains pretty much about their way of working.

The whole research is based on a experimental approach that proceeds steps to steps following a very precise rhythm.

At the very beginning of the workshop, the students focused on a particular kind of movement that should have been created in a very mechanical way. From the circular movement of a motor the goal was to generate a different one with his own specificity.

The research goes further with very concrete script.
First of all gather scrap materials, put them together and try to realize the movement in a very rough way. Then observe the behavior of the machine, which is most of the time something different from what is expected. Select some interesting features of this movement, that may go in a completely different direction from the very first idea, and try to magnify them. Repeat the process several times, taking some food, every once and then .

Variation on the procedure:IMG_0342

Everyone does a reasonable amount of welding, grinding, cutting steel, getting dirty, this will help to win the awe that large amount of steel or iron usually instill.

 

The overall concept is the establishment of a action-reflection process grounded on a very practical basis. Therefore the participants are pushed to document, describe and analyze the idea and any development on the Time’s up teaching blog.

So, here some pictures of this very intense experience, that will for sure influence deeply our future approach to the machine!