Arts in Robotics
May 19 -23, 2025 Atlanta, USA
Arts in Robotics is a growing interdisciplinary field that interconnects various subfields of robotics and the arts such as mechanism design and sculpture, motion planning and choreography, machine learning and painting, and haptics and costume design. Arts and entertainment have been a significant part of ICRA as in Stelarc’s mesmerizing performance at ICRA ’23 in London and the thought-provoking Automation in Expression gallery exhibition at ICRA ’22 in Philadelphia. There are an increasing number of technical papers on this topic as well. Arts in Robotics continues the tradition at ICRA ’25 with a multifaceted program: a special session of invited performances, a special session of juried works, a tutorial, a workshop, and networking events at the intersection of robotics and art.
Image: Medusai, courtesy of Gil Weinberg
Program
19
May
Medusai
7:30 PM - 9:30 PM | The Goat Farm ATL
Invited installation of Medusai by Gil Weinberg and team
Bus will depart from GWCC Building A around 7:30pm and 8:45pm, returning at 8:30pm and 9:45pm, respectively.
20
May
Special Session - Morning
9:00 AM - 1:00 PM| Expo Hall (Room 101A)
A special session of peer-reviewed works
5078 Lucas Bang* “Autopoietic Turing Machine: A Kinetic Sculpture Exploring Robotic and Human Expressivity”
5102 Chenhao Hong*, Saitarun Nadipineni, Tanishtha Ramlall, Chapa Sirithunge, Kaspar Althoefer, Fumiya Iida, Thilina Dulantha Lalitharatne “Expanding Emotion-Mediated Soft Robotics into Immersive Public Art”
5103 Xiaofeng Guo*, Guanqi He, Jiahe Xu, Mohammadreza Mousaei, Junyi Geng, Sebastian Scherer, Guanya Shi. “Flying Calligrapher: An Autonomous Aerial Drawing System”
5105 Emma Brass* “Community: A Physically Distributed System of Interacting LLM-Driven Personas”
5115 Wilson O. Torres*, Jasmine Escobedo, Evelyne F.B. Morisseau, Hannah Stuart “Adaptive Aesthetics: Articulated fashion for expression and discretion”
5125 Do Won Park*, Eleonora Sguerri, Samuele Bordini, Giuseppe Infantone, Maria Rosanna Fossati, Manuel Barbarossa, Manuel Giuseppe Catalano, Antonio Bicchi, Dario Focardi, Luca Melchionda “Alter-Art: Doing Arts through a Robot Alter Ego”
5140 Yejin Kim*, Peter Schaldenbrand, Jean Oh “Human-Robot and Robot Collaboration”
5120 James Bern*, J. Diego Caporale, Diedra Krieger. “Not-So-Micro Plastic”
5146 Luyang Zhao*, Yitao Jiang, Chun-Yi She, Alberto Quattrini Li, Muhao Chen, Devin Balkcom “SMILE: Soft Modular Intelligent Lattice for Entertainment”
Special Session - Afternoon
2:00 PM - 6:00 PM| Expo Hall (Room 101A)
A special session of peer-reviewed works
5081 Michael Armstrong* “The Flayed Man”
5085 Shuang Wu, Hongrui Yu* “ “Mother”: Robots Highlighting Self-Care Challenges for Working Moms in Asian Feminism’s Lens”
5094 ZIYIN LIU, Da Zhao, jinlong XU, Ning DING, Suxuan Jiang, Tin Lun Lam, Shaomin Shen* “Time Rotation: Snailbot’s cyclic movement posing inquires into the essence of time”
5097 Saima Jamal*, Mayank Mehta. “FREE HUGS: Baymax-Inspired Pneumatic Robot”
5100 Björn Lindqvist*, Jakub Haluska, Erik Hedberg, Gunilla Röör, George Nikolakopoulos. “Human-Robot Collaboration in Dance and Performance Art: A cooperation between robotics research and the theater.”
5104 Nicole Fronda* ““We fly into the sun” and others – A Collection of Drone-Based Sound Art”
5107 Angshu Adhya, Cindy Yang, Emily Wu, Rishad Hasan, Abhishek Narula, Patrícia Alves-Oliveira* “Painted Heart Beats”
5121 Yuanchen Bai, NITI PARIKH, Ruixiang Han*, Wendy Ju, Angelique Taylor “Art-Driven Co-Making of Healthcare Robots“
5136 Dennis Hong, Yusuke Tanaka*. “Buoyant Choreographies: Harmonies of Light, Sound, and Human Connection”
21
May
Special Session - Morning
9:00 AM - 1:00 PM | Expo Hall (Room 101A)
A special session of peer-reviewed works
5091 Fei Xiao, ZIYIN LIU, jinlong XU, Zhuoheng Wei, Jisen Li, Suxuan Jiang, Ning DING, Jian ZHU*, Shaomin Shen “Love co-existed with Sun”
5095 Kiju Lee*, David Man Ho, Hayyam Iqbal, Naomi Drori, Paul Moubarak, Neha Vemula “The Bloom: An Interactive Origami Robotic Art Installation in Mixed Reality”
5099 Jeeho Ahn*, Christoforos Mavrogiannis “From A to Ω: Pixel Art with a Mobile Robot”
5135 Andrew Goldberg, Kavish Kondap*, Tianshuang Qiu, Zehan Ma, Letian Fu, Justin Kerr, Huang Huang, Kaiyuan Chen, Kuan Fang, Ken Goldberg “Generative AI and Representational Sculpture”
5138 Uksang Yoo*, Alonso Cano Villarreal, Hyun Woo Park, Ingrid Navarro, Pablo Ortega-Kral, Andrew Hundt, Olivia Robinson, Jean Oh “Soft Black Boxes: Interactive Environment for Explainability”
5142 Leonardo Fagundes-Júnior, Alexandre Santos Brandao* “Beyond the Pixel: UAV Light Painting as a Photographic Art From”
5148 Uyen Nguyen*, Duy Nguyen, Matthew Riley “Human-Robot Sonic Playground“
5151 Hamza Shoukry, Mojtaba Sharifi* “Functional and Aesthetic Cover Design for Lower-Limb Exoskeleton”
5090 Jookyung Song, Mookyoung Kang, Nojun Kwak* “SketcherX: AI-Driven Interactive Robotic drawing with Diffusion model and Vectorization Techniques”
Special Session - Afternoon
2:00 PM - 6:00 PM| Expo Hall (Room 101A)
A special session of peer-reviewed works
5079 Justin Baird*, Richard Savery “Redefining Artistic Boundaries: A Real-Time Interactive Painting Robot for Musicians”
5084 Marek Sierotowicz* “Exploded-view”
5092 Dawei Wang*, Yipeng PAN, Jia Pan “FotoBot: An Embodied AI robot system for photography”
5110 ZIYIN LIU, Chongyang Wang, jinlong XU, Yuan Gao* “Cell Agent: Simulation of Cell’s Life Mechanism with Robotic Agent”
5111 Chanyoung Ahn, JAESUNG LEE, Donghyun Hwang* “Interactive 3D Tangible Display with a High-Speed Stiffness-Variable Jamming Module”
5112 Megan Coram*, Allison M. Okamura, Cosima du Pasquier “Apparel Design for Modular Wearable Haptic Devices”
5134 Iremnur Tokac* “Craft-Inspired Robotic Fabrication and Design”
5152 Ranjana Sahai* “Bio-inspired Robots in Nature”
5130 Stephanie Miracle, Deema Totah* “Vulnerability Is Your Friend: Co-Creating Robots with Dancers”
Art in Robotics Dinner
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM | Omni Hotel
Live at the Rialto
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM | 21 May | Rialto Theatre
Performances from invited artists Merritt Moore (Machine Yearning), Louisa Pancoast x Nialah Wilson-Small x Smashworks Dance (Austringer), and Naomi Fitter (comedic stand-up with NAO humanoid).
Image Credit: Merritt Moore
22
May
Keynote - Heather Knight
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM |TBC
Heather Knight runs the CHARISMA Robotics research group at Oregon State University. Her previous work includes a postdoc at Stanford University, a PhD in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University exploring Expressive Motion for Low Degree of Freedom Robots, and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Additional past work include robotics and instrumentation at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, sensor design at Aldebaran Robotics, nine years of producing an annual Robot Film Festival, a robot flower garden installation at the Smithsonian/Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, robot comedy on TED.com, and a British Video Music Award for OK GO’s “This Too Shall Pass” music video featuring a two-floor Rube Goldberg Machine.
Awards Ceremony
11:00 AM | Expo Hall (Room 101A)
Working Group Meeting
3:30 PM | Expo Hall (Room 101A)
20 - 22
May
Film Screenings and Other Presenters
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM & 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM |Room 101A
A special session of peer-reviewed works
5083 Matt Adams, Nick Tandavanitj, Steve Benford*, Ayse Kucukyilmaz, Victor Zhi Heung Ngo, Simon Castle-Green, Guido Salimbeni, Pepita Barnard, Joel Fischer, Alan Chamberlain, Eike Schneiders, Clara Mancini “Cat Royale: An Artistic Inquiry into Trust in Robots”
5093 Patrick Martin*, Kate Sicchio “Interconnected”
5146 Luyang Zhao*, Yitao Jiang, Chun-Yi She, Alberto Quattrini Li, Muhao Chen, Devin Balkcom “SMILE: Soft Modular Intelligent Lattice for Entertainment”
5077 Maxime Pelletier-Huot, Hélène Duval, Audrey Rochette, Ali Imran, Rafael Braga, Yann Bouteiller, Vivek shankar Varadharajan, Giovanni Beltrame, Abdalwhab Bakheet Mohamed Abdalwhab, Rachid Aissaoui, David St-Onge* “DESSAIM”
5080 GIUSEPPE SAVIANO*, Alberto Villani, Domenico Prattichizzo “On-line Projection of Dancer Body Synergies for Robot-Augmented Choreography”
5108 ZIYIN LIU, Xiaoqiang Yuan, AIDONG ZHANG, Wanjun Hao, Shusheng Ye, jinlong XU, Suxuan Jiang, Ning DING, Shaomin Shen* “Field of Consciousness: The Art and Science of Life’s Duality”
5109 ZIYIN LIU, jinlong XU, Junhui Law, Suxuan Jiang, Ning DING, Jiangfan Yu, Yu Sun, Shaomin Shen* “Micro-nano Landscape: An Artistic and Scientific Journey Across Scales”
5150 Lingyun Chen*, Abdalla Swikir, Sami Haddadin “Drawing Robot Artist: Bridging Creativity, AI, and Physical-World Interaction”
5081 Michael Armstrong* “The Flayed Man”
23
May
Tutorial:Revealing the Meaning of Bodily Expression of Human Counterparts for Robots Using Dance Theory and Human-annotated Benchmark Datasets
Full Day
Accepted tutorial
Workshop: Pulling the Strings on Creative Collaborations: A Retrospective on Puppetry, Choreography, and Control
Full Day
Accepted Workshop
Organisers
Amy LaViers
Program Co-Chair
Jean Oh
Program Co-Chair
Program Committee
Gerry Chen (GA Tech)
Damith Herath (U of Canberra)
Diedra Krieger (Penn)
Peter Schaldenbrand (CMU)