Keynote SESSION INFORMATION
JULY 17,2020: 11 AM- 12:15 PM EDT (UTC -4)
dr. Gil Weinberg
Robotic Musicianship and Musical Human Augmentation
ABSTRACT
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Robotic Musicianship research at Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology (GTCMT) focuses on the design and construction of autonomous and wearable robotic musicians that can analyze, generate and expressively play music with humans. The main goal of our research is to facilitate meaningful and inspiring musical interactions between humans and artificially creative machines. Unlike interactive computer music applications, our robots are designed to use physical gestures and choreography to create social connection with their human collaborators. In our work we have shown how robotic gestures, movement, and embodied social presence can inspire humans’s creativity and engagement as well as improve musical attributes such as fluency, synchronicity, and overall enjoyment. In this talk I present the work conducted by the Robotic Musicianship Group at GTCMT over the last 15 years, highlighting the motivation, research questions, platforms, methods, and underlining guidelines for our work.
BIO
Gil Weinberg is a Professor and The Founding Director of Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, where he leads the Robotic Musicianship group. His research focuses on developing artificial creativity and musical expression for robots and augmented humans. Among his projects are a marimba playing robotic musician called Shimon that uses machine learning for composition, improvisation, and interaction, and a prosthetic robotic arm for amputees that restores and enhances human musical abilities.
Weinberg has presented his work worldwide in venues such as the United Nations, The Kennedy Center, The World Economic Forum, Ars Electronica, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum, SIGGRAPH, and TED among others. His music has been performed with orchestras such as Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the National Irish Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish BBC Symphony, while his research has been disseminated through articles and patents in the field of human-robot-interaction and music technology. Weinberg received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and his B.A. from the interdisciplinary program for fostering excellence in Tel Aviv University.