Alter-Art: Exploring Embodied Artistic Creation through a Robot Avatar

2026-04-29

AI Summary

This work proposes the Alter-Art paradigm, a novel approach to human-robot artistic collaboration grounded in embodiment as a core design principle. Addressing the limitations of traditional frameworks—where physical and perceptual barriers hinder deep integration—the system leverages immersive teleoperation and compliance-driven actuation to enable artists to inhabit a robotic avatar, or Alter-Ego, from a first-person perspective. This allows real-time bodily mapping and force-feedback interaction across multimodal creative domains such as dance, theater, and painting. Experimental results demonstrate that artists rapidly develop a strong sense of presence with the robot body, and that its physical constraints actively shape the creative process. These findings underscore the critical potential of embodiment in expanding expressive possibilities for remote artistic practice and advancing applications in socially interactive robotics.

Abstract

As with every emerging technology, new tools in the hands of artists reshape the nature of artwork creation. Current frameworks for robotics in arts deploy the robot as an autonomous creator or a collaborator, thus leaving a certain gap between the human artist and the machine. Now, we stand at the dawn of an era where artists can escape physical limitations and reshape their creative identity by inhabiting an alternative body. This new paradigm allows artists not only to command a robot remotely, but also to {\it be} a robot, to see and feel through it, experiencing a new embodied reality. Unlike virtual reality, where art is created in a digital dimension, in this case art creation is still firmly grounded in the material world: clay molded by mechanical hands, paint swept across a canvas or gestures performed on a physical stage alongside human actors. Through the robot avatar Alter-Ego, we explore the Alter-Art paradigm in dance, theater, and painting; it integrates immersive teleoperation and compliant actuation to enable a first-person creative experience. Analyzing qualitative artistic feedback, we investigate how embodiment shapes creative agency, identity and interaction with the environment. Our findings suggest that artists rapidly develop a sense of presence within the robotic body. The robot's physical constraints influence the creative process, manifesting differently across artistic domains. We highlight embodiment as a central design principle, contributing to social robotics and expanding the possibilities for telepresence and accessible artistic expression.

Problem

• embodiment
• robot avatar
• artistic creation
• telepresence
• creative agency

Innovation

• embodied creation
• robot avatar
• immersive teleoperation
• compliant actuation
• creative agency