The idea of creatively designing robots brings together the supposedly diverse fields of art, design and AI/Human-Robot Interaction. Described as an “unlikely symbioses” (Herath, Kroos & Stelarc) whereby the impracticality of art seems a strange contribution to engineering and sciences, the combination of art and robots is gaining worldwide interest in practical and academic research and in recent international exhibitions. Human-Robot Interaction researchers are beginning to reach out to fields not traditionally associated with robotics, such as the performing arts and animation, in order to gain new insights. Indeed, as robots proliferate in our everyday lives, new approaches and the role of design become central for it is designers who shape the interfaces between humans and machines. In fact it is from the arts, whether cinematic or literary, that popular imagination about robots was initially formed. Art and design, in other words, can be used both theoretically and practically to rethink how robots were once imagined, what robots are today and what they may become.

By drawing from the cross pollination of HRI, design and art, the meeting of technology and aesthetics can be examined. This multidisciplinary conference seeks to explore what the added value of art is to HRI, as a process of design, as a source of inspiration, simulation or as practice-based research, to name a few. By exploring the concepts, technology, history and philosophy of the intersection between HRI, art and design we hope to forge new connections between these disciplines and industries.

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The conference is a collaborative project between the Departments of Arts (Nea Ehrlich) and Industrial Engineering and Management (Tal Oron-Gilad, Vardit Sarne-Fleischmann and Yael Edan) at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev with the M.Des Program in Industrial Design (Romi Mikulinsky) at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem.
This conference is supported by ABC Robotics Initiative and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences for Multidisciplinary Research Activities, both at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem.