This is a common objection that I receive. I believe everyone has the right to their own aesthetics. You don’t have to like anything that I make. The argument of what is art has been going on for centuries, and any meaningful response to that would include a treatise that would take much too long to write and research. However, I think the underlying objection here is that to use a robot to draw is somehow cheating. The objection is really based on the premise that I am outsourcing the act of drawing to a machine. It eliminates the human. However, in my case this couldn’t be further from the truth.

New technology has been used in art for thousands of years. The paintbrush was once new. The pen. Paints. Papers. All sorts of tools. And with any tool, one can use it in a rote, habitual and uninspired way—a painter giving a house a fresh coat of paint—or in an integrated, responsive and creative way—Michelangelo up there brushing paint on the ceiling. A drawing robot is really no different except that it must be plugged in. It can be used in a rote way, just like a printer, a simple sending of a file to render it material. Or it can be used as a creative tool—optimized and engaged with to create something surprising and new and directly tied to its user and the interaction.