Since the early 2000s when multiple research institutions began experimenting with robots for architectural fabrication, industrial robot arms have become an almost iconic symbol of robotics in architecture and research. Initially developed for the execution of complex repetitive motions in a manufacturing environment, the robot arm has provided a flexibility of freeform movement, liberating design practice from traditional modes of production. Increasing popularity and status of the robot arm resulted in it being treated as a given: a default tool for any task, if not as a placeholder for any complex mechanised movement. However, in adapting this industrial machine for experimentation with materials, fabrication methods, geometries and tools, we rarely contemplate what it means to be in a space with the machine and the relationships we build with it.

Robots as Companions invites Sougwen Chung and Madeline Gannon, two artists and researchers whose practices not only involve various types of robots but actually include them as collaborators and companions, to join Maria Yablonina (Daniels Faculty) in conversation. Through their work, they challenge the notion of a robot as an obedient task execution device, questioning the ethos of robot arms as tools of industrial production and automation, and ask us to consider it as an equal participant in the creative process. 

About the speakers

Sougwen Chung (Artist, New York)

Sougwen Chung is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist. Chung's work explores the mark-made-by-hand and the mark-made-by-machine as an approach to understanding the dynamics of humans and systems. Her speculative critical practice spans performance, installation, and drawings have been featured in numerous exhibitions at museums and galleries around the world.

Madeline Gannon (Artist, Researcher, Pittsburgh)

Madeline Gannon is a multidisciplinary designer inventing better ways to communicate with machines. In her research, Gannon seeks to blend knowledge from design, robotics, and human-computer interaction to innovate at the intersection of art and technology. Her recent works taming giant industrial robots focus on developing new frontiers in human-robot relations.    

Moderated by Maria Yablonina (University of Toronto, Daniels Faculty)