engineering

Leonel Moura

Leonel Moura is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Leonel Moura rather than just read about it. In short: Leonel Moura (born December 26, 1948, in Lisbon, Portugal) is a conceptual artist whose work shifted in the late 1990s from photo based work to Artificial Intelligence and Robotic art. Since then he has produced several Painting Robots and the Robotarium, a zoo for robots.

Key takeaways

Leonel Moura belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Leonel Moura to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Leonel Moura from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Leonel Moura (born December 26, 1948, in Lisbon, Portugal) is a conceptual artist whose work shifted in the late 1990s from photo based work to Artificial Intelligence and Robotic art. Since then he has produced several Painting Robots and the Robotarium, a zoo for robots. RAP (Robotic Action Painter) (2006) is a robot that makes drawings based on emergence and stigmergy, decides when the work is ready, and signs it, is displayed as a permanent installation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Robots ArtSbot (Art Swarm Robots), 2003, comprise several small autonomous robots, called Mbots, each equipped with color detection sensors, obstacle avoidance sensors, a microcontroller and actuators, for locomotion and pen manipulation. Mbots have two distinct behaviors: the random behavior that initializes the process by activating a pen, based on a small probability (usually 2/256), whenever the color sensors read white; and the positive feed-back behavior that reinforces the color detected by the sensors, activating the corresponding pen (since there are two pens, the color circle is split into two ranges - 'warm' and 'cold'). With this process the collective set of robots generate compositions where from a random background some color clusters emerge. RAP (Robotic Action Painter), 2006, work alone but based on the same principles of emergence and stigmergy. Some improvements however produce rather distinct compositions from those of the ArtSbot swarm. Some of the new skills are: to determine the length and shape of each trace, the capacity to decide, in a non-linear mode, the moment to stop and the ability to sign. Additionally RAP works with six color pens and the RGB sensors are disposed in a grid of 3x3 which permits to detect local patterns and not only colors. ISU, 2006, is very similar to RAP but is able to write letters and build words. In this fashion it makes compositions that resemble some of the Lettrist works from the 1950s and automatism. Robotarium X is a large-scale steel glass construction lodging forty-five different robots, most powered by photovoltaic energy and fully autonomous. RUR, the birth of the robot In 2010 Leonel Moura creates a new version of the theatre play RUR with robots. R.U.R., Rossum’s Universal Robots is a classic playwright written by Karel Capek in the 1920s in which the word ROBOT was coined. Men and robots clash resulting in the extermination of mankind and the emergence of robots as a new dominant species. The play was always staged with human actor’s transvestite as robots. Moura’s new version displays, for the first time, real robots interacting on stage with human actors. RUR, the birth of the robot, debuted in August 2010 at the Itáu Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil. During the 2017 edition of The New Art Fest (Lisbon) the artist installed BeBot, a swarm of robot-painters demonstrating the idea of future autonomous art.

Books Moura, Leonel et al. (2009) INSIDE [art and science], Lisbon, LxXL edition Moura, Leonel (2009) Robot Poetry, Coimbra, Water Museum edition Moura, Leonel (2009) RAP (Robotic Action Painter), Tavira, Tavira Museum Edition Moura, Leonel (2007) Robotarium, Lisbon, LxXL edition Moura, Leonel et al. (2005) Bioart - A new Kind of Art, Lisbon, Edition: Prates Gallery Moura, Leonel and Pereira, Henrique Garcia (2004) Man + Robots: Symbiotic Art, Villeurbanne, Institut d'Art Contemporain, Lyon/Villeurbanne Moura, Leonel (2003) Formigas, Vagabundos e Anarquia (Portuguese), Lisbon, Edition: AAAL, Out-of-print Moura, Leonel et al. (2002) Architopia, Cascais. Utopia Biennial Moura, Leonel (1995) Impossibilité (French), Villeurbanne, Edition: Institut d'Art Contemporain, Lyon/Villeurbanne

References

Rhizome On Robotarium Wired On Robotarium European Ambassador for Creativity Profile Addressing Collective Robotics in Artistic Terms by Leonel Moura & Henrique Garcia Pereira A text on Robot Art MIT on MIT Artificial Life cover Architect Magazine on Automatic Architecture Interact Symbiotic Art as a new type of game recombining art, science and philosophy, Leonel Moura & Henrique Garcia Pereira Symbiotic Art Manifesto, 2004

External links Leonel Moura website RAP at AMNH A series of videos on LM's robot art on YouTube

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Leonel Moura

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Leonel Moura claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Leonel Moura before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Leonel Moura ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Leonel Moura

In research: Leonel Moura appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Leonel Moura in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Leonel Moura is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 births, Conceptual artists, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Leonel Moura outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Leonel Moura in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Leonel Moura means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Leonel Moura out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Leonel Moura in simple terms?

Why does Leonel Moura matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Leonel Moura?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Leonel Moura.