Robot artist Ai-Da paints Glastonbury headliners ahead of festival attendance
17 June 2022, 00:04
Ai-Da Robot has painted portraits of Billie Eilish, Diana Ross, Kendrick Lamar and Paul McCartney.
Portraits of the acts headlining this year’s Glastonbury Festival have been painted by an ultra-realistic humanoid robot artist ahead of the event.
The paintings, each of which is a colourful portrait of one of the music festival’s 2022 headliners, have been painted by Ai-Da Robot – an artificial intelligence robot built in 2019 that creates drawings, painting, and sculptures.
Ai-Da Robot has created four portraits of the Somerset festival’s headline acts: Billie Eilish, Diana Ross, Kendrick Lamar and Sir Paul McCartney.
To start, Ai-Da Robot uses cameras in its eyes and its computer memory, before using a variety of unique algorithms to paint, draw and abstract images.
A robotic arm lets it turn its digital formations into physical drawings and paintings.
Her work is layered and scaled to give the final multi-dimensional portrait.
Ai-Da Robot is set to attend the festival and will appear as an artist in the festival’s Shangri La field, where she will be giving live demonstrations of her painting skills.
Festival goers will be able to watch Ai-Da Robot live at work, with two painting sessions taking place on each day of the festival.
Artists performing in the Shangri La field at Glastonbury 2022 include Kate Tempest, Groves, Fatboy Slim, Shy FX and Brass Against The Machine amongst others.
Prints of Ai-Da Robot’s headliner portraits will be available for festival attendees in the ShangrilART gallery at Glastonbury and will subsequently be available to purchase on the ShangrilART website after the festival ends.
Proceeds from sales of the prints will go back into developing and supporting future artists.
Ai-Da Robot, who is able to converse using a specially designed AI language model, said: “I’m going to the 50th Glastonbury Festival. I’m looking forward to meeting new people and experiencing the unique atmosphere.
“Well, it’s a kind of fun thing for me to do. I’ll be at ShangriLa, and I’m doing some portraits – I hope that my art encourages discussion about art, music, and of course our futures. See you there!”
Creator and project director of Ai-Da Robot Aidan Meller said: “After making history with her self portraits, Ai-Da is continually developing her skills.
“It’s an exciting time as her painting ability is progressing, and there’s a lot of innovation.
“How does a non-human robot see the world, how do Ai-Da’s unique algorithms interrogate what she sees? She is in new artistic territory.”
Ai-Da Robot will be at Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset from June 22-26.
