Interactive Robotic Painting Machine Performance

A concert on Tuesday, April 26th at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts will mark the debut of Head Swap, a work for amplified violin and interactive robotic painting machine that mixes music, art, technology, and robotics into one multidisciplinary performance.  The machine, designed and built by Benjamin Grosser, 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.  At the concert the machine will collaborate with violinist Benjamin Sung as he plays music by Zack Browning.  Sung will watch what the machine paints, using what he sees as guidance through the score.  The machine will listen to what Sung plays, using what it hears to help evaluate what it paints.  Throughout, the machine also functions as a musical instrument itself, feeding pitched chords (dyads usually) back into the work.