Leonel Moura

Leonel Moura (born on December 26, 1948 in Lisbon, Portugal) is a conceptual artist whose work shifted in the late 90’s from photo based work to Artificial Intelligence and Robotic art. Since then he has produced several Painting Robots and the Robotarium, a zoo for robots, the first of its kind in the world. RAP (Robotic Action Painter), 2006, a robot that makes drawings based on emergence and stigmergy; decides when the work is ready and signs it, is displayed as a permanent installation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Robots

ArtSbot (Art Swarm Robots), 2003, comprise several small autonomous robots, called Mbots, each equipped with color detection sensors, obstacle avoidance sensors, a microcontroller and actuators, for locomotion and pen manipulation. Mbots have two distinct behaviors: the random behavior that initializes the process by activating a pen, based on a small probability (usually 2/256), whenever the color sensors read white; and the positive feed-back behavior that reinforces the color detected by the sensors, activating the corresponding pen (since there are two pens, the color circle is split into two ranges - 'warm' and 'cold'). With this process the collective set of robots generate compositions where from a random background some color clusters emerge.
RAP, 2006, work alone but based on the same principles of emergence and stigmergy. Some improvements however produce rather distinct compositions from those of the ArtSbot swarm. Some of the new skills are: to determined the length and shape of each trace, the capacity to decide, in a non-linear mode, the moment to stop and the ability to sign. Additionally RAP works with six color pens and the RGB sensors are disposed in a grid of 3x3 which permits to detect local patterns and not only colors.

ISU, 2006, is very similar to RAP but is able to write letters and build words. In this fashion it makes compositions that resemble some of the Lettrist works from the 50’s and automatism.
Robotarium X is a large-scale steel glass construction lodging forty-five different robots, most powered by photovoltaic energy and fully autonomous.

Books

Moura, Leonel et al (2005) "Bioart - A new Kind of Art", Lisbon, Edition: Prates Gallery
Moura, Leonel and Pereira, Henrique Garcia (2004) [http://www.amazon.fr/dp/2905985674 Man + Robots: Symbiotic Art] , Villeurbanne, Institut d'Art Contemporain, Lyon/Villeurbanne
Moura, Leonel (2003) "Formigas, Vagabundos e Anarquia (Portuguese)", Lisbon, Edition: AAAL, Out-of-print
Moura, Leonel et al (2002) [http://www.i-art-c.org/documentation/publi2.html Architopia] , Cascais. Utopia Biennial
Moura, Leonel (1995) [http://www.i-art-c.org/documentation/publi2.html Impossibilité] (French), Villeurbanne, Edition: Institut d'Art Contemporain, Lyon/Villeurbanne

References

[http://rhizome.org/news/story.php?&timestamp=20070622 Rhizome]
[http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-06/ Skeptical Inquiry]
[http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/06/robotarium-x-ro.html Wired]

External links

[http://www.leonelmoura.com Leonel Moura] website
[http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/humanorigins/human/art2.php RAP] at AMNH