NGV Triennial: It’s puppy love when robot dogs are art’s best friend

Polish artist Agnieszka Pilat has trained robot dogs how to paint, demonstrating the creative applications of AI.

Agnieszka Pilat with her quadruped robot dogs, Bonnie Spot and Basia Spot, at the National Gallery of Victoria for the 2023 NGV Triennial exhibition in December. Picture: Eugene Hyland

Most dog owners can get their pooches to sit on command or to chase a stick, but Agnieszka Pilat has taught hers another trick – how to paint.

The Polish artist has worked with engineers to train the four-legged robots – all have the surname Spot – to daub paint on a canvas using a special attachment, or by using their legs.

The robotic canines will be on show as part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s showcase of international contemporary art, the NGV Triennial, in December.

Pilat said her contribution was intended to help demystify the applications of robotics and artificial intelligence. She had worked with engineers at robotics company Boston Dynamics to program the mechanical creatures and “teach” them how to paint. Visitors to the NGV Triennial will be able to watch them over four months as they work on a “monumental” painting.

“Robotics and technology in the real world are very different from what is going on in the metaverse,” Pilat said in Melbourne. “Robots have to respect nature, and respect physics, and I think that makes them closer to us, because we have bodies too.”

Pilat, who grew up during the 1980s and the dying days of communism in the eastern bloc, said for her, technology and robots represented the freedom of the West and optimism of creativity.

“What we saw in Eastern ­Europe was crumbling technology,” she said. “When the West opened, the first thing my father did was buy a car – we never had a car growing up.

“For me, technology is like the promise of a better future, and that’s the message I want to say.”

Pilat, who now lives in the US and has a studio in New York, said a lot of collectors of her works were from Silicon Valley.

The third iteration of the NGV Triennial, opening across four levels of the St Kilda Rd building on December 3, will feature more than 75 projects by 100 artists and collectives from 30 countries.

Yoko Ono, fashion house Schiaparelli and British artist Tracey Emin are among international creative forces taking part.

Another installation will be a monumental fish fence, Mun-dirra, woven by 10 artists and apprentices in Maningrida.

Gallery director Tony Ellwood said the NGV Triennial was an opportunity for visitors to experience “new and surprising forms of creative expression from around the globe”.