On April 14th, robotics resident Adrianne Wortzel gave a sneak preview of her film The Sentient Thespian at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.

This humorous and poignant short film explores an irritable and conniving four-legged robot’s intrigues with both a fellow 15-foot industrial robotic arm, and its human interlocutor.

ThoughtWorks Arts in collaboration with groundbreaking film studio Scatter teamed up on March 16-17 to run a free community workshop for 24 participants. Together, they taught artists, technologists, designers and filmmakers the newest version of the Depthkit technology.

Scatter, a Brooklyn-based creative company, produces immersive experiences, provides tools and training, and empowers creators using volumetric filmmaking techniques.

Robotics resident Catie Cuan was recently featured in a video feature for Engadget, highlighting the importance of machine movement.

In the interview, Catie explains her ideas on how robotics are impacting society and how choreography can change the way we understand human-robot interactions.

This summer we were thrilled to host a Special Edition Art-A-Hack in collaboration with The Volumetric Society, the Human Impacts Institute and the New York City College of Technology (City Tech).

Four teams met over four Saturdays to create projects around two parallel issues.

Art-A-Hack project Dual Brains by Eva Lee and Aaron Trocola, and Noor: A Brain Opera by ThoughtWorks Director Ellen Pearlman were highlighted in a Redshift article exploring the use of brain-computer interface technology (BCI) in art.

BCIs enable a communication pathway between a wired brain and an external sensor device. Artists like Lee, Trocola and Pearlman are using this emergent brainwave technology to create new artistic experiences and are currently leading the charge in exploring potential applications of the technology.

We are pleased to announce that Adrianne Wortzel and Catie Cuan will join ThoughtWorks Arts this summer as our newest residents, exploring issues of movement and robotics.

Adrianne Wortzel is an acclaimed artist who creates unique and innovative interactive web-based works, robotic and telerobotic installations, performance productions, videos, and writings. During her residency at ThoughtWorks Arts, Adrianne will be initiating a project to develop a social and psychotherapeutic tool for nonverbal expression through gesture.

Karen Palmer, filmmaker and “storyteller from the future” has spent the last 6 months at ThoughtWorks as our Artist in Residence, focused on AI for her emotionally responsive immersive film, RIOT.

During the residency, ThoughtWorks developers have written and open-sourced an emotional expression analysis system named EmoPy, building on the work Karen did with AI researcher Dr. Hongying Meng of Brunel University in London.