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Cat Royale: A case study of artist-led AI research

Cat Royale: A case study of artist-led AI research
Cat Royale: A case study of artist-led AI research
We explore artist-led research as a method to complement technical AI methodologies. We present a case study called Cat Royale in which artists created a robot to play with cats. We show how the artist-led development of this system involved extensive improvisation to create a socio-technical AI system that ultimately delivered a corpus of video data of cats interacting with robots. We introduce a machine learning tool that enables diverse stakeholders to explore this corpus. We reflect on the distinctive characteristics of artist-led AI research, the potential benefits to AI, and the tensions involved.
Cat Royale
2640-3498
16-25
Cao, Dingbang
44729bcf-4277-4f18-9249-3c70d62af5c6
Tandavanitj, Nick
524dcbd4-f575-46c9-8338-7666875560ce
Adams, Matt
2859aaa0-3fcc-4913-bd6f-f2e951d78ad9
Farr, Ju Row
ffaa0e00-ae37-46ad-8e45-b7f7c0e0f82c
Schneiders, Eike
9da80af0-1e27-4454-90e2-eb1abf7108bd
Salimbeni, Guido
8175e3b8-071f-4f6e-9b24-427c65098cbf
Pound, Mike
6f6daae9-acd8-4e67-9c50-f97fad2f44d2
Mancini, Clara
279a1afa-d86b-4aa2-b255-80b69b60efbb
Benford, Steve
61c727be-1561-424d-a8ef-c6933d024630
Cao, Dingbang
44729bcf-4277-4f18-9249-3c70d62af5c6
Tandavanitj, Nick
524dcbd4-f575-46c9-8338-7666875560ce
Adams, Matt
2859aaa0-3fcc-4913-bd6f-f2e951d78ad9
Farr, Ju Row
ffaa0e00-ae37-46ad-8e45-b7f7c0e0f82c
Schneiders, Eike
9da80af0-1e27-4454-90e2-eb1abf7108bd
Salimbeni, Guido
8175e3b8-071f-4f6e-9b24-427c65098cbf
Pound, Mike
6f6daae9-acd8-4e67-9c50-f97fad2f44d2
Mancini, Clara
279a1afa-d86b-4aa2-b255-80b69b60efbb
Benford, Steve
61c727be-1561-424d-a8ef-c6933d024630

Cao, Dingbang, Tandavanitj, Nick, Adams, Matt, Farr, Ju Row, Schneiders, Eike, Salimbeni, Guido, Pound, Mike, Mancini, Clara and Benford, Steve (2025) Cat Royale: A case study of artist-led AI research. Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, 295, 16-25.

Record type: Article

Abstract

We explore artist-led research as a method to complement technical AI methodologies. We present a case study called Cat Royale in which artists created a robot to play with cats. We show how the artist-led development of this system involved extensive improvisation to create a socio-technical AI system that ultimately delivered a corpus of video data of cats interacting with robots. We introduce a machine learning tool that enables diverse stakeholders to explore this corpus. We reflect on the distinctive characteristics of artist-led AI research, the potential benefits to AI, and the tensions involved.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 5 August 2025
Keywords: Cat Royale

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 503722
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/503722
ISSN: 2640-3498
PURE UUID: b8d2a81f-20d0-49ac-be4f-aa114148d565
ORCID for Eike Schneiders: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8372-1684

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 11 Aug 2025 16:55
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 02:46

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Contributors

Author: Dingbang Cao
Author: Nick Tandavanitj
Author: Matt Adams
Author: Ju Row Farr
Author: Eike Schneiders ORCID iD
Author: Guido Salimbeni
Author: Mike Pound
Author: Clara Mancini
Author: Steve Benford

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