the big picture

A robot as landscape painter: A robot arm, an uninterrupted line extending hundreds of kilometres, 900 million movements, 2,000 positionings of the canvas – this is the origin of »the big picture«, the latest project by the »robotlab« artist group.

BY ZKM NEWSROOM

On 30 January 2014, the mast camera of the NASA Curiosity Mars Rover took a picture of Local Mars Time on the afternoon of the 528^th Mars solar day of the mission. 639 days later, on 30 October 2015, this image becomes the basis of a very special drawing: On a white canvas, a robot arm begins to draw a continuous black line, which eventually extends hundreds of kilometres.

In a process lasting months, the initially abstract structure gradually approaches the Mars landscape recorded by the Mars Rover:

The image that is created in this way is a creative process, which transcends the possibilities of human creativity: The sketched landscape was not recorded by the human eye, but rather by a Mars robot. The robot artist transfers its image data using algorithmic operations into a unique, uninterrupted path, consisting of over 900 million movements – over 2,000 positionings of the canvas are necessary to create the drawing. In “the big picture” installation, the robot is assigned the role of a landscape artist, finishing his work six months later on 11 April 2016.