Automation Fellows: Sharings

As they come to the end of their fellowships, our Automation Fellows are starting to share their exciting new knowledge with the world. Here’s how they have been sharing all the brilliant things they’ve been working on, and how you can access them:

Alejandro Veliz-Reyes

  • Clay artefacts 3D printed in collaboration with Tom Duggan (Industry Fellow) were included in the “Alchemy in Art” exhibition at Tate St Ives. You can read more here:  https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/exhibition/thomas-duggan-alchemy-art
  • “Negotiated matter: A robotic approach to craft-driven innovation” Architectural Science Review (Special Issue: Means, Methods and Machines in Architecture). Research also supported by EPSRC Grant “Computing Craft” (Industrial Systems in the Digital Age).
  • Upcoming x2-3 academic publications on the topic of robotic fabrication. Academic publications are available through the standard publication repositories at the University of Plymouth
  • Alejandro’s research work has fed the development of teaching content for his own MA/MSc Integrated Design course across a range of Modules, as well as upcoming guest lectures at the BA Architecture course at the University of Plymouth, and the MArch Architecture and Design course at The Bartlett, UCL.

Anna Chatzimichali

  • Anna’s research was shared at 4th International Conference on Robot Ethics and Standards: Artificial Intelligence, Robots and Ethics – (London South Bank University, London, United Kingdom, 29 Jul 2019 – 30 Jul 2019,https://www.icres2019.org/). You can read her research at the conference proceedings.

Ben Crowther

Dr Birgitte Aga

By 2023 there is forecasted to be 8 billion digital voice assistants in use. Currently these systems are embedded with significant race and gender biases, and lacks ethical guidelines for their design. Through Birgitte’s research as an Automation Fellow and her wider work as a technology designer, researcher and artist, she has been exploring the impact of these ‘technologies that talk’ on us and society as a whole. 

  • She has been sharing her research through a process of activating users of AI technologies through talks, provocations and workshops. You can read more about Birgitte’s work on birgitteaga.com and the Women Reclaiming AI website.
  • Check her paper on “Being with “technologies that talk” in the online SWCTN publication ‘Out of the black box’ (coming soon) 

Chloe Meineck

Edward Braund

Ellie Foreman

  • In October Ellie spoke at the Technology and Anthropology Conference on How should we design conversational Al in order to provide emotional support? You can read her delegate interview here.
  • Ellie is working with Birgitte Aga on Women Reclaiming AI. Look out for their upcoming workshops on their website.
  • Follow Ellie on Twitter to hear about her workshops and 2020 events.

Guy Gadney

  • Guy will be sharing his progress and research findings at the Beyond Conference, the annual R&D conference for the creative industries. 20-21 November 2019 – Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, UK

Joseph Wilk

Mollie Claypool

  •  Mollie was commissioned to write a piece in July 2019 titled ‘Discrete Automation’ on e-flux architecture, a widely read architecture journal online, as part of a series titled ‘Becoming Digital’. You can read it here.
  • This piece attracted the organisers of The Conference in Malmo, Sweden, who asked Mollie to give one of 4 keynote lectures to the 1,000+ attendees of the conference in August. You can watch her keynote here.
  • The writing and lecture outlines an architectural approach for design production and construction called ‘Discrete Automation’ that radically rethinks architectural design, fabrication and assembly, particularly for the production of housing.

Patrick Crogan

Rachel Smith

Robert Dooley

Ron Herrema

Rosie Brave

  • Rosie has been exploring the idea of how technology contributes and hinders wellbeing, principally through the lens of wearable technology. Through various codesign activities and workshops, Rosie is exploring what people would choose to design and use if they were afforded more control or input into the design of health and wellbeing technologies.
  • Rosie will be sharing her findings at an exhibition in Spring/Summer 202o. Follow @SW_CTN and @braveresearch on Twitter to be the first to hear all the details

Ruby Jennings

Rupert Johnstone

  • Rupert’s research concerns the role and activities of individual makers in the technology spectrum ranging from the handmade to the fully automated. What is the landscape of activity? What barriers and challenges are there for the individual creative? What and where are the opportunities?
  • Rupert is exhibiting at the ExIST STEAMM event at Exeter College in December 2019 where he will show early prototypes of his chat pot and research touch experiments.
  • He will share progress of his work through social media (Twitter, Instagram, FB) through the @rampceramics handle.
  • Take a look at Rupert’s website for more information on his projects, shop, and upcoming workshops in 2020.

Tariq Rashid

  • Tariq has been maintaining two blogs during his fellowship, detailing his work and research:
  • Tariq has also run talks and tutorials based on what he has learned, and on some of the tools he has been using:
  • Tariq has also been working with the Royal Cornwall Museum to organise a 2.5 month Algorithmic Art Season, with a programme that covers not just exhibits but also talks, tutorials, performances and a panel debate.
  • Look out for Tariq’s end-of-research talk in London and Cornwall in March/April 2020, as well as his book on GANs, due to be published through Amazon in 2020.

Thomas Duggan

  • Tom has been working on automated robotic additive printing, developing a system in collaboration with KUKA robotics, IMERYS and Plymouth University to build and optimise an additive printing process of sustainable, locally sourced materials.
  • Thomas’s work was exhibited at Tate St Ives from the 19th of October – 3rd of November, with a talk from the artist on the 3rd of October. You can see more here.
  • Tom will be publishing further insights work on his website.

Yanran Li

  • “Efficient convolutional hierarchical autoencoder for human motion prediction”, is accepted by the journal of The Visual Computer. 2019 Jun 1 with high scores. Now this work is available online and related videos and presentations are given on the conference of  Computer Graphics International (CGI). The Video of this work is available. Yanran is the first author of this work and leads this research. (In the attachment)
  • “Densely connected GCN model for motion prediction”, is another model addressed the tackled problem in motion prediction research so far. This work is accepted by journal Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds. The related presentations and videos will be coming out in October on CASA 2020 conference soon. Yanran is the first author of this work and leads this research. 
  • ” Peeking into occluded joints: A novel framework for crowd pose estimation” is a cooperated work with Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data. This work is accepted by the top-level conference in computer vision—-In Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV). The project page can be view on “https://lingtengqiu.github.io/2020/03/22/OPEC-Net/“. The presentations and videos are given out on ECCV conference. (In the attachments)
  •  Yanran is invited to present her research work (1.5 hour) in one of the best research institution Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data. More than 100 attendees are joined. 
  • Workshops and presentations of yanran’s research are coming soon in Bournemouth University or online.