A performer, a robot and an avatar walk in a theatre…

No, this is not a joke! This is what really happened at the Valletta Campus where a performance was organized between the Department of Intelligent Computer Systems within the Faculty of ICT and the Centre for 21st Century Studies in Performance within the School of Performing Arts.

Artificial Intelligence is permeating our everyday life and the performing arts are definitely not an exception. A group of students following the AI degree under the supervision of Prof Alexiei Dingli created four demos. Two of them involve dancing robots using the Makeblock Ultimate and the LEGO Mindstorm robotic kits.

The first robot was capable of seeing the live performer, Lucia Piquero Alvarez, and move in relation to her actions. The students made use of a 3D camera capable of performing skeletal detection in order detect the movements of the performer. This would send cues to the robot so that it can plan future dance moves. The second robot was more of a dancing king, which listened to the music and then, performed specific moves based upon the music being played. In both cases, virtual senses were implemented by the students, which mimic real human senses and allow the robot, to interact in real-time with the events happening around it.

The other two demos involved an Avatar and Swarm Intelligence techniques. The avatar was capable of seeing the performer and perform dancing moves accordingly. The idea behind this was to create a virtual partner for the dancer.

On the other hand, the Swarm Intelligence demo creates virtual objects in the shape of spheres, which rotated around the performer and interacted with her moves. The program behind the spheres implemented swarm intelligence algorithms, which are inspired by social animals such as birds, fish, etc.

Through this work, we have only laid the initial foundations between Artificial Intelligence and the Performing Arts so expect to see more in the coming years.

All of this would not have been possible without the hard work of the Artificial Intelligence students together with the creative ideas of Prof Alexiei Dingli (Dept. of Intelligent Computer Systems), Prof. Frank Camilleri (Dept. of Theatre Studies) and Lucia Piquero Alvarez (Dept. of Dance Studies).

In addition to this work, the Department of ICS, through the Artificial Intelligence degrees at the Faculty of ICT within the University of Malta, aims to be at the forefront when it comes to smart technologies from all aspects of society be it artistic, medical or political.

The BSC ICT in AI and MSc A.I. courses are aimed to inspire a new generation of professionals that deal with emerging technologies such as Big Data, Cloud Computing, Web Intelligence, Internet of Things, Robotics, Creative Technologies, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Artificial Vision.

joy and suffering in an impressively artistic way. A literary appraisal of the poems was provided by Carm Cachia and Prof. Manwel Mifsud. Promoting students skills and talents, not only academic ones, has always been crucial for the holistic vision of the Sixth Form and vital for the realisation of young people’s aspirations. Towards the end of the Soiree the Headmaster Daniel James Cassar paid tribute to the organising team, especially the Department of Maltese and English headed by Florence Garcia and Bernardette Gatt. The Soiree was under the patronage of the Minister for Gozo, Anton Refalo and was made possible, mainly through the good services of the Ministry for Gozo, The Gozo Cultural Information Office, Education+, The European Association for Teachers and the BOV.