 | |
Type of site | Telerobotics |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Created by | Ken Goldberg and Joseph Santarromana |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | June 1995 |
| Current status | Offline |
The TeleGarden was a telerobotic community garden for the Internet. Starting in the mid-1990s, it allowed users to view, plant and take care of a small garden, using an Adept-1 [1] industrial robotic arm controlled online.
The project began at the University of Southern California [2] with project directors Ken Goldberg of University of Southern California, and Joseph Santarromana, a University of California, Irvine artist at the time known for his video installations. [3] They envisioned it as an art installation challenging the notion of the Internet [4] and "consider[ing] the 'post-nomadic' community, where survival favors those who work together." [2]
Project members included George A. Bekey, Steven Gentner, Rosemary Morris, Carl Sutter, Jeff Wiegley, and Erich Berger. [2] [5] The Telegarden went online in June 1995. During its first year, it attracted over 9000 members. [2] In September 1996, the Telegarden was moved to the Ars Electronica Center in Austria where it was originally planned to be on display for one year, [2] though it ended up remaining active until August 2004. [5]
The Telegarden was a fusion between old technology (agriculture) and new technology (the Internet). The notion of a physical garden that is operated by users online was appealing to Goldberg because "it was the most absurd". [6]
This new media art raised questions of legitimacy. How are users to know that the garden actually exists, or that any of their motions matter? Goldberg stressed that, "media technology generally facilities the suspension of disbelief." [7]
In its nine years, the installation had 10,000 members, and 100,000 people visited the physical exhibit. Users interactivity created a miniature social network. People became protective of plants, even territorial. [8]
Interactive art is a form of art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some interactive art installations achieve this by letting the observer walk through, over or around them; others ask the artist or the spectators to become part of the artwork in some way.
Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance or effect of being present via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location.
Telerobotics is the area of robotics concerned with the control of semi-autonomous robots from a distance, chiefly using television, wireless networks or tethered connections. It is a combination of two major subfields, which are teleoperation and telepresence.
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Kenneth Yigael Goldberg is an American artist, writer, inventor, and researcher in the field of robotics and automation. He is professor and chair of the industrial engineering and operations research department at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at Berkeley, with joint appointments in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), Art Practice, and the School of Information. Goldberg also holds an appointment in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.
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New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D printing, and cyborg art. The term defines itself by the thereby created artwork, which differentiates itself from that deriving from conventional visual arts. New Media art has origins in the worlds of science, art, and performance. Some common themes found in new media art include databases, political and social activism, Afrofuturism, feminism, and identity, a ubiquitous theme found throughout is the incorporation of new technology into the work. The emphasis on medium is a defining feature of much contemporary art and many art schools and major universities now offer majors in "New Genres" or "New Media" and a growing number of graduate programs have emerged internationally. New media art may involve degrees of interaction between artwork and observer or between the artist and the public, as is the case in performance art. Yet, as several theorists and curators have noted, such forms of interaction, social exchange, participation, and transformation do not distinguish new media art but rather serve as a common ground that has parallels in other strands of contemporary art practice. Such insights emphasize the forms of cultural practice that arise concurrently with emerging technological platforms, and question the focus on technological media per se. New Media art involves complex curation and preservation practices that make collecting, installing, and exhibiting the works harder than most other mediums. Many cultural centers and museums have been established to cater to the advanced needs of new media art.
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Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in the city of Linz. Ars Electronica's activities focus on the interlinkages between art, technology and society. It runs an annual festival, and manages a multidisciplinary media arts R&D facility known as the Futurelab. It also confers the Prix Ars Electronica awards.
Cloud robotics is a field of robotics that attempts to invoke cloud technologies such as cloud computing, cloud storage, and other Internet technologies centered on the benefits of converged infrastructure and shared services for robotics. When connected to the cloud, robots can benefit from the powerful computation, storage, and communication resources of modern data center in the cloud, which can process and share information from various robots or agent. Humans can also delegate tasks to robots remotely through networks. Cloud computing technologies enable robot systems to be endowed with powerful capability whilst reducing costs through cloud technologies. Thus, it is possible to build lightweight, low-cost, smarter robots with an intelligent "brain" in the cloud. The "brain" consists of data center, knowledge base, task planners, deep learning, information processing, environment models, communication support, etc.
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