ANAT SALON :: Emotionally Engaging the Machine

WHEN: 5.30pm for 6.00pm start, to 8.00pm
WHERE: Customs House, Level 1, Barnet Long Room

FREE EVENT :: BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL

ANAT Salon Sydney brings together leading artists to explore and discuss human interactions with robots and machines.

As the boundaries between people and machines begin to blur, what does this mean for the way we relate with machines? Can humans emotionally engage with robots and machines, and vice versa? Or are emotional interactions with machines notional, unintentional reactions driven by anthropomorphism? What senses (if any) do AI’s use to emotionally engage with humans?

Join the ABC's technology reporter, Ariel Bogle in conversation with Professor Mari Velonaki Director of UNSW’s Creative Robotics Lab, together with artists Dr Belinda Dunstan, Justin Harvey and Dr Wade Marynowsky.

Join us for lively conversation, followed by networking, drinks and nibbles.

Bookings required for catering purposes.

Customs House is an accessible venue. Enter via main entrance and take lift to first floor.

Speakers

Ariel Bogle is a technology reporter at the ABC. She writes, edits and makes radio about technology policy and culture. Most recently, she was technology editor at The Conversation. Her work has been published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Australian Financial Review and Slate, among other places.

Prof Mari Velonaki is an artist and researcher in the fields of Social Robotics and Interactive Media Art. Velonaki is a Professor of Social Robotics at UNSW. She is the founder and director of the Creative Robotics Lab (UNSW) and the National Facility for Human Robot Interaction Research. In 2014 she was voted by Robohub as one of the world’s 25 women in robotics you need to know about. She is the recipient of several competitive grants, including an Australia Research Council Fellowship and an Australia Council of the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship. Mari’s robots have been exhibited in multiple museums worldwide.

Dr Belinda Dunstan is an academic at the UNSW Faculty of Built Environment and a member of the UNSW Creative Robotics Lab. She is an artist, researcher and lecturer in the space between art, design and technology. Her current research interests are in social robot morphology, technology ethics and responsive environments.

Justin Harvey is a Sydney based artist working across moving image, sound and installation. His solo works present abstract expressions of interactions between artist and machine, exploring the unintended beauty in the breakdown of the digital image.

Dr Wade Marynowsky is an artist, academic and researcher working across robotics, immersive and interactive performance and installation. His main body of research explores the notion of robotic performance agency by challenging notions of classical spectatorship and performance. His practice is characterised by large-scale robotic, sound, light and interactive works that combine humour, camp and a host of unnerving thematics to absorbing affect.

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Accessibility:
Venue is on level 1. Please access lift via front entrance.
There is no designated car parking at Customs House.
There are 2 on-street mobility parking spaces 250m away on the western side of Pitt Street, south of Alfred Street.
The closest paid public parking stations are behind the Gateway building (Underwood Street opposite the Marriott Hotel on Pitt Street) - 9256 6900, the Sir Stamford Hotel (93 Macquarie Street) - 9252 4600, and the Sydney Opera House - 1800 727 5464.

ANAT SALON Sydney is supported by:

ANAT is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, the South Australian government through Arts South Australia and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of Federal and State Governments. The Synapse program is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.

Top image (background): Justin Harvey, Glitch Monument (still), 2015