Interview: Bruce Shapiro, "motion control" artist

Apr 4, 2005

Bruce Shapiro is the Artist-in-Residence at the Science Museum of Minnesota. He'll speak at the upcoming Gel 2005 conference on Friday, April 29.

I originally met Bruce at an ArtBots show in New York, where he was displaying Sisyphus II, a brilliantly designed machine that creates rich designs in a kind of sandbox, with one moving arm.

Bruce told me that he bought all the mechanical parts for Sisyphus II at auction before they were to be melted down for scrap (!). He's passionate about his engineering, his art, and his educational efforts... in other words, about good experience.

Here's my follow up conversation with Bruce.

Q - What's your passion?

First, I consider myself a scientist. I believe in the scientific method and am keenly aware that my analytical powers are very useful for making these motors work. Still, analysis doesn't fully cover the big questions, and maybe not at all. I'm continually amazed by the artistic side of my work, because it's so clearly outside of the analytical realm. There's something immensely pleasurable about that side of what I do.

In addition to science and art, the third aspect of what I'm passionate about is education. Using science and art as educational tools brings everything together into this great mix. When I'm working for a science museum, or on a public exhibit or kinetic piece, I can use that directly to get kids into learning about making motors do what you want them to do.

Q - You work with motors.

It's a field called "motion control." Most people have heard of robotics, but not motion control, which is not as sexy. Robotics is a sexy idea - people love the notion that if you can get machines to move the way you want, the next goal is to make a mechanical human. I'm taking a different approach - maybe from my medical background - which appreciates that the human organism is way more complicated than most people realize. Past predictions about robotics expected robots to be much further along than they are today. That doesn't surprise me.

I'm most interested in doing experiments with the simplest machines possible, like with a single motor. I'm not sure anyone's done it, simply because people have assumed there's nothing that interesting to do, in that protozoan level of robotics. I'm continually amazed by the behaviors I see in very simple motion control systems. I go out of my way not to use the term robotics, because once you do, it's hard for people not to think of anthropic machines.

One of the goals in my art is to take my excitement and demonstrate it. If you look at my work, the robotic aspect of it is extremely elementary, simple, sub-MIT Robotics Lab level. But the behaviors it can exhibit are worthwhile and surprisingly interesting. That to me is an inexhaustible area to explore - and what makes it available for exploration is the availability of the hardware.

Q - What about the availability?

Very few people see the inside of modern factories, and consequently have little idea of how your keyboard is made, or how all the plastic stuff is made. But more and more, any factory making stuff is doing it with computer-controlled machines - that's the only way to compete economically. The stuff of these machines - motors, controls, valves - the parts of the motion-control industry, are made for an extremely rigorous environment. 24 hours a day, millions of hours of cycles, they're made to last. In fact, the parts far outlast the machines, which were created to make a single product.

3M, whose headquarters are in my home town, is a classic example. A few years ago, there were these beautiful machines that made 5 1/4-inch diskettes. 3M spent lots of money to create those machines, but now there's no market for the big floppy disks. So the machines are getting melted down, or sold as scrap, because they're metal. But the pieces of the machines were still functioning. Some of those parts find their way onto eBay, or various surplus stores, for low prices.

Just as a round number, a machine used to be about $1,000 per axis. One motor and the electronics to run it, without a computer, cost about $1,000. Now it can be bought for about ten dollars, if you know where to look. A 99% discount is not just a good deal; it really starts to make things possible that would have been truly impossible.

All the stuff that moves industry is available from the high-tech junkyard. That makes it possible for students and artists to play with it. I'm extremely passionate about the possibilities that that opens up - not just for kinetic art pieces, but for turning kids onto that sort of technology, kids who might not otherwise be turned on to analytical or engineering-related aspects of technology.

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Bruce Shapiro's website: www.taomc.com

Bruce will speak at Gel 2005 on Friday, April 29.

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