Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

See the
Conversations with History Blog

See a webcast of this interview:
Goldberg

Hear a podcast of this interview:
Goldberg

 Robotics and Art in the Information Age: Conversation with Ken Goldberg, Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, UC Berkeley, August 25, 2005, by Harry Kreisler

This interview is part of the Institute's "Conversations with History" series, and uses Internet technology to share with the public Berkeley's distinction as a global forum for ideas.

Welcome to a Conversation with History. I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies. Our guest today is Ken Goldberg, who is Professor of Industrial Engineering in Operations Research at UC Berkeley, where he also has an appointment in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. book coverKen is also an artist and his work has been exhibited all over the world. He is Founding Director of UC Berkeley's Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium, and is the author of, among other works, a collection called Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet.

  1. Background ... idealistic parents ... engineer father ... lacking the sci-fi gene ... collecting butterflies ... robotics
  2. Day Job/Night Job ... electrical engineering and computer science ... doing art at night ... nature of creativity ... nonconformity
  3. Robots and Other Technologies ... orienting parts for industry ... medical applications ... questioning efficiency ... unexpected social implications
  4. Art and Engineering ... the "night job" ... the resumption of disbelief ... unequal levels of respect in these two worlds
  5. Robot Art ... robot with a brush ... uninteresting results ... robot's movements more compelling ... allowing people to control the robot ... in the garden ... critique of the Internet ... fuzzy reality ... knowing from a distance: telepistomology ... echoing post-Descartes shift in epistemology
  6. Art Projects ... Ouija board online ... camera on Sproul Plaza ... technology and art fuse into social experiment
  7. Broader Questions of Surveillance ... battlefield technology ... crafting a campus policy on surveillance ... interdisciplinary responses ... seeking truth in fatherhood ... uniquely human traits

© Copyright 2005, Regents of the University of California

Site questions: Email iis_webmgr at berkeley.edu.