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How does the use of robotics and artificial intelligence influence human creativity in the creation of art? This question is the focus of a symposium from 31 January to 1 February 2025 at CLB Berlin. Participants in the project "Embodied Agents in Contemporary Visual Art“ (EACVA) will present their research and artwork. The project's artists in residence – Licia He, Gretta Louw, Anna Mirkin and Patrick Tresset – will show their work in the field of robot-assisted painting, drawing and calligraphy. They will discuss the latest advances involving robotics and art with researchers from the fields of art, computer science, cognitive science, psychology and sociology.

This is exactly the kind of multidisciplinary collaboration between researchers and artists that makes EACVA so special. EACVA is a joint project of Goldsmiths and the University of Konstanz that began in 2023. The project partners work on questions that play an important role in the discourse on human-machine interactions, art, aesthetics and creativity. Who, for example, should get credit for the creativity and authorship of artwork made using integrated image generation software? And how does this change the public's perception of the aesthetic quality of a work of art?

"We want to use the interdisciplinary methods from our project to promote the cross-pollination of ideas from the fields of art, science and technology", says Oliver Deussen, a professor of visual computing at the University of Konstanz and a co-speaker of its Cluster of Excellence "Collective Behaviour". Deussen leads the project EACVA together with Frederic Fol Leymarie, a computer science professor at Goldsmiths, and artist Liat Grayver as Artistic Director.

“This symposium is the latest output of a collaboration between Goldsmiths and the University of Konstanz that aims to address the fundamental issues surrounding robotics, artificial intelligence and how both can influence creativity. The involvement of robots and machines in art is impacting the way that creativity and authorship are perceived and, in turn, re-shaping perceptions of art itself. The extent to which robotic systems can act as extensions of the artists’ own capacities is also a subject that we are keen to explore and investigate”, says Frederic Fol Leymarie.

The interdisciplinary character of the symposium "EACVA in Berlin" will be highlighted in the exhibition project "Labor" (laboratory) led by Liat Grayver and Daniel Berio (another artist and EACVA member) which will also be on display at CLB Berlin from 25 January to 2 March. In addition to this, works by EACVA artists in residence will also be presented at a public exhibition there from 31 January to 2 March 2025.

The project "Embodied Agents in Contemporary Visual Art (EACVA): How Robotics and A.I. Could Influence Creativity" receives funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through the end of 2025.