For these activities we are making use of a "swarm" of Micro:bitit drawing robots from 4tronik.

As part of the New Media Art Club's Computala exhibition at the LCB Depot in January 2025, Sean Clark has installed the first version of his new A Colloquy of Drawing Robots artwork. 

A Colloquy of Drawing Robots is the latest in Sean Clark's series of "Colloquy" installations and is the first to feature robotics. The series of installations was originally inspired by Gordon Pask's seminal A Colloquy of Mobiles artwork from the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition in 1968. Like Pask's pioneering work, Clark's Colloquy artworks contain multiple "parts" that interact with each other to form complex "wholes".  The resulting artwork is more than the sum of the parts and the interactions often results in unpredictable outputs.

In A Colloquy of Drawing Robots, the "parts" are individual drawing robots. Programmed with only basic rules - move forward, try to avoid other robots and the edges of the drawing area, and spin around, the individuals work together to fill the drawing surface with a unique computer drawing. This can be regarded as the "whole", with the parts and wholes combining to form a “system”. The drawing can also be seen as a record of all of the interactions that have taken place from when the installation is first activated.

A second inspiration in this work is the artist Harold Cohen, who is widely known for his AARON computer-controlled drawing machines. Cohen was a successful painter, fabric designer and printmaker before his use of computers and the output of this particular installation is intended to resemble his Vineyard design from 1959. This artwork is one of a number of Harold Cohen artworks held in Leicester's Computer Arts Archive.

A Colloquy of Drawing Robots will be developed throughout 2025 and will be used as part of workshops and other activities to help teach people about computer drawing. New behaviours will be added to the robots in order to create more varied outputs.

A Colloquy of Drawing Robots was first shown at Computala in Leicester. The exhibition opened on January 9, 2025. For more information about Computala, visit the New Media Art Club website. Photographs from the exhibition opening night can be found below.

Arts Award is a Trinity College London-accredited scheme that supports art education for young people. Our latest Arts Award Discover course introduces the art of Harold Cohen and shows how drawing robots can be used to create images in his style. If you are interested in Interact Digital Arts running similar courses in the future, please get in touch.

The drawing robot used for this project is a 4tronix Minibit with an ultrasonic distance sensor. It is powered by a Micro:bit v1 or v2. The core drawing robot blocks software and a remote control program used in the workshops can be diwnloaded below.

Hardware

• 4tronix Minibit Robot £24

• 4tronix ltrasonic Distance Sensor Optional) £4.98

• BBC Micro:bit v2.2 Starter Kit (£16-18)
  
  

Software

• Micro:bit Drawing Robot Lite
  Simple programmable and controlable robot code.
  https://github.com/seancuttlefish/drawing-robot-lite

• Micro:bit Drawing Robot Remote
  Remote control for Micro:bit Drawing Robot Lite.
  https://github.com/seancuttlefish/drawing-robot-remote

We are updating our Pollock open-source drawing robot to use the Micro:bit and will release it in summer 2025. We hope that the kit for this will come to around £15, plus 3D-printed parts and your own Micro:bit.