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Design

Hacked Roomba Robot Paints Like Pollock

Japanese artist HYde JII has modified a robotic vacuum cleaner to paint on canvas.

Japanese artist HYde JII has turned a robotic vacuum cleaner into a robotic painter. HYde JII modified the 15-year-old iRobot Roomba last year, which now goes under the name Head-kun (Mr. Head). He says he created the robot to answer questions like "What is the aesthetic identity of a robot?". He attached tubes and plastic bottles filled with paint to the Roomba and programmed it so it could shuffle about and drizzle paint as it went along.

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So far it's produced two abstract pieces, Spring Worm Hole (2014) and the rather fetching Spring Starburst (2015). The pieces are painted with acrylic paints on a three feet by three feet canvas, as the robot works its way in a laborious manner that takes hours to complete—you can see the methods in the time-lapse videos above and below.

Mr. Head isn't the only robotic vacuum cleaner to have made its debut as an "artist". Japanese artists Chim↑Pom also turned a domestic bot into an abstract expressionist in their work Paradox of Downtown.

You can check our Mr. Head and his work below.

Mr. Head

Spring Starburst (2015). Photos by ATOM

Spring Starburst (2015). Photos by ATOM

Spring Wormhole (2014). Photos by ATOM

Spring Wormhole (2014). Photos by ATOM

h/t Spoon & Tamago