Challenges in Human Computer Interaction: Evolutionary Robots

Recently I had the chance to visit Theo Jansen’s Animals Modular exhibition in Seoul, where I could finally admire in person his beautiful creatures. Theo Jansens is a very well known Dutch artist, famous since the early 90s mostly because of his amazing kinetic sculptures, large animal-like plastic skeletons which move autonomously on beaches with the power of wind (check out Theo Jansen’s BMW commercial for seeing his sculptures in action). Apparently, one day some people in Netherlands saw these huge creatures wandering around the beach, taped them on video and shared it: that was the beginning on Theo Jansen’s publicity.

I have seen these creatures in action, walking back and forth the hall of the museum in Seoul, and I have to admit that it is impressive to see them in motion. From an artistic point of view, it is, in fact, the motion which makes these creatures really alive and credible; from a technical point of view, understanding the skills involved to engineer the motion, storing the energy from the wind in bottles, sensing the water to avoid drowning in the sea are simply amazing brain teasers. It is also fascinating to see how the whole system has been conceived by the artist as part of a continuous and natural evolution: the creatures are in fact classified according to different evolutionary traits (hence, the choice to name them in Latin). There is much to say about these topics, but I leave readers the words of Theo Jansen himself (watch his TED talk).

You might be wondering now how Theo Jansen and his sculptures are even related to robotics at all. After my previous interview with Don Norman I cannot stop thinking of how he defined robots: he said that robots are objects characterized by autonomy and movement. It hence seems obvious to me that the Animals Modular are nothing less than robots: they move independently using wind as main source of energy; they also react intelligently to the environment using simple switch mechanisms activated by pumps to avoid the water (falling into the water would result in the death of these animals); finally, they are also incredibly expressive and alive while “shaping the air surrounding them”, like if they had a life of their own: according to Theo Jansen, in fact, these creature were indeed somehow alive. At the museum we were told that he refused to rebuild parts of these sculptures (e.g., the wings) which had deteriorated by exposure to rain and wind. He argued that these creatures lived their own life on the beaches before dying and that the museum should actually show them as if they were true lifeforms who once lived, rather than pretty, but dull, artifacts.

For further readings about this topic, I invite the audience to check out Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest website and an example of detailed analysis about the evolutionary design of these creature’s feet.