Mr. Head first became famous back in 2015 when two of his art pieces appeared. The reason for the fame was that Mr. Head was not a human but an old Roomba robot vacuum, repurposed to become a painter. The robot is back in a crowdfunding campaign allowing people to get their hands on his artwork.
The robot’s journey is described in its biography: “Only 15 years old, Mr. Head was created by the iRobot Corporation as a cleaning robot. In October of 2014, he changed careers and began his life anew as an artist in Tokyo.”
Initially, the robot produced two pieces but due to “unforeseen technical, development and equipment costs,” its artistic activity was paused until now. The journey is now continuing and the robot is seeking funding to continue his artwork through a crowdfunding campaign.
The development of the robot is being overseen by the Japanese artist Masato Yamaguchi and it is still unknown how independent the robot actually is. The robot has undergone an upgrade and the newer version is stated to be much more autonomous than the predecessor.
The device will choose the colour choices based on the weather and temperature. This is one of the new impressive tricks it has learned. Another trick it added to its arsenal is the ability to disperse paint from the top of its body resulting in a greater variety of splatter patterns on top of the previous layers.
The artwork is not cheap by any means. There are three sizes being offered. The smaller one measuring 530mm X 530 mm costs $737 and a slightly larger 1,000mm X 1000mm piece goes for $1,300. The largest piece measuring 2,000mm X 1,000mm has a staggering price of $9,460. If you are not interested in owning the original canvas but an exclusive print of the robot’s work, then you can get your hands on one for $64.
The delivery dates are expected to be somewhere in December but that is hardly surprising as it takes a complete day for the robot to complete one painting. It certainly is an interesting prospect to own a painting painted by a robot. You can check out Mr. Head in the video below:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/957900640/experience-the-world-of-robot-art?ref=video