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On September 26th the Vienna Tourist Board will be hosting an event where Alex Kiessling is creating artworks not only in Vienna, but simultaneously in Berlin, at Breitscheidplatz, and London, at Trafalgar Square.
Alex is using two industrial robots (ABB IRB 4600) who are fed by real-time tracking data from Vienna via satellite connection to the remote cities. The result will be three artworks that are later brought together to built a triptych.

By reading data from an infra-red touch frame and a Microsoft Kinect we analyze the movements of the artist and then the data is translated to feed the coordinates to the robots’ servers — difficult process since the robots’ software was not designed to interpret real-time data. The robots then recreate the movements of the artist and draw their interpretation of Alex’s drawing in real time. The data will be transmitted from Vienna to Berlin and London using a dedicated satellite connection.

Credits:

Client: Vienna Tourist Board
Artist: Alex Kiessling http://www.alexkiessling.com
Technical Director: Thomas Hitthaler
vvvv Programmer: Daniel Maaz, Robi Hammerle, Thomas Hitthaler
Robot Programmer: Romain Aigner, Thomas Mayer
Documentation and Project Management: Gregor Hofbauer

Additional Credits:

Construction and Logistics: INDAT
INDAT Project Manager: Chris Steiner
Stage Berlin: Zesner Sportberatung
Stage London: Martin Hyde
Ad Agency: Jung von Matt / Donau
Support: Austrian National Tourist Office Berlin and London