HOW TO BUILD A DISHWASHER
Art by Robots for Robots

Ben Brown, Garth Zeglin, Geoff Gordon, Iheanyi Umez-Eronini, Marek Michalowski, Paul Scerri, Sue Ann Hong and Axel Straschnoy

From the viewpoint of robotics, washing dishes is a complex and inefficient activity. First you must grab the plate, wash it with a soapy brush, rinse it and then put it up to dry. Instead of re-creating this human sequence of actions, the builder of a dishwasher must re-think the entire process. What would be the simplest and most effective way of achieving the same end result? What is the actual core idea of washing dishes?

How to Build a Dishwasher approaches the mechanics of the making and reception of art from this perspective. Can the experience of art be broken down into its component parts and be re-thought using the logic of dishwasher design? Is it possible for a robot to create art that another robot might be able to appreciate and understand? What could that art be like?

Answers to these questions were sought by interviewing artists, neurobiologists, philosophers, theatre directors and robotocists at Carnegie Mellon University. One of the team members and the initiator of the project is Axel Straschnoy, a Helsinki-based Argentinean artist, who was invited to Carnegie Mellon in September 2008 by systems scientist Paul Scerri. After a month of discussions, the team of seven roboticists decided to put their ideas to the test.

This marked the start of a R&D project that lasted for more than a year. The result was two autonomous, intelligent and mutually interactive robots: one that performs and another that watches the performance with amazement, interest or boredom, as the case may be. The 'body language' of the robots was designed specifically for this purpose, yet the team did not want to make the thinking machines too human by giving them external human characteristics. The focus instead was on the sense of wonder at the difference between robots and humans.

But are we humans capable of understanding artistic activity between robots? Can art exist without humans and the human world of experience? Thus far the robots seem to be excited about rather simple things, just as humans may have been in the past. But might robots be able to learn to make more complex art, such as might interest not only another robot, but humans as well?

The How to Build a Dishwasher exhibition can be seen as a transmodern version of historical avantgarde, an attempt to understand how our thinking and our experiences are moulded by technology, but also as an attempt to understand the future and its potential. The discussions of the team and the construction of the robots were taped and edited into a multi-channel installation which is presented in the exhibition along with the robots.

Axel Straschnoy (b. Buenos Aires 1978)
Born in Argentina, Axel Straschnoy studied at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. In his work, he employs a wide range of media from X-rays to performative projects to installations. However, the thematic core of Straschnoy's work is the network of contacts that arises in the process of making, communicating and presenting art. In spite of their conceptual nature, his works are fundamentally based on the process of making things either alone or in groups, on the creation of test platforms and on a sense of wonder, rather than mere analytic thinking.

Axel Straschnoy participated in the Le Pavillon programme at Palais de Tokyo, one of the key forums for the presentation of and discussion on experimental contemporary art. In 2005, he won the arteBA-Petrobras Visual Arts Award, one of the most prestigious art awards for young artists in Latin America. Straschnoy currently lives and works in Helsinki.

Robotic performances on
Thursday April 8th at 5 PM
Tuesday April 27th at 4.15 PM
Tuesday May 11th at 16.15 PM
Wednesday May 19th at 10.00 AM
Saturday May 29th at 16.00

Produced by Piritta Puhto / Kompistuotanto

Supported by:
AVEK
Alfred Kordelin Foundation
Arts Council of Finland
Arts Council of Helsinki Metropolitan Region
Kone Foundation
Collaborative Machining Center, Carnegie Mellon University
Studio for Creative Inquiry
University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science