robots vs. music, automatica by nigel stanford shows mechanical arms that rock and revolt

sound expert and musician nigel stanford has released a music video for the title track on his new album ‘automatica’. the musical track, as well as its accompanying video, feature stanford himself along with the robots. though it may seem like the artificially intelligent musicians completely generated the music themselves, a combination of special effects and precisely timed footage create the image that they are.

to create automatica stanford used a robot animator for autodesk maya to program the robots

to create this musical piece, stanford spent a month in his garage ‘teaching’ the mechanical arms —made by germany-based manufacturer KUKA robotics — to work piano keys, guitar picks, and a whole drum kit complete with drumsticks and percussion foot pedals. by the end of the video, the robots rebel against their human collaborator, tossing and smashing their instruments while a laser cuts through the set.

the artist behind the project also posted a video that shows some behind-the-scenes clips

with this new project, stanford continues to explore the relationship between music and science. such has been his examination, that even NASA and the european space agency have used music from his first album, 1999’s ‘deep space’. it was in early 2015 that he came up with the idea of following up the huge success of ‘cymatics’.

their movements are accurate to 0.3mm

the video shows robots playing instruments, and ultimately destroying them

all the robot shots are real

nigel stanford spent a month in his garage teaching the robots to play the piano, guitar and drums

stanford’s full album ‘automatica’, as well as the video, are available for download at the artist’s site