2016-06-15
the big picture
A robot as landscape painter: A robot arm, an uninterrupted line extending hundreds of kilometres, 900 million movements, 2,000 positionings of the canvas – this is the origin of »the big picture«, the latest project by the »robotlab« artist group.
On 30 January 2014, the mast camera of the NASA Curiosity Mars Rover took a picture of Local Mars Time on the afternoon of the 528th Mars solar day of the mission. 639 days later, on 30 October 2015, this image becomes the basis of a very special drawing: On a white canvas, a robot arm begins to draw a continuous black line, which eventually extends hundreds of kilometres.
In a process lasting months, the initially abstract structure gradually approaches the Mars landscape recorded by the Mars Rover:
The image that is created in this way is a creative process, which transcends the possibilities of human creativity: The sketched landscape was not recorded by the human eye, but rather by a Mars robot. The robot artist transfers its image data using algorithmic operations into a unique, uninterrupted path, consisting of over 900 million movements – over 2,000 positionings of the canvas are necessary to create the drawing. In “the big picture” installation, the robot is assigned the role of a landscape artist, finishing his work six months later on 11 April 2016.