Professor Mari Velonaki
Professor
PhD (2003) 'Experimental Interfaces and Interaction Design,' College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Australia.
BFA (Hons 1), 1999, Media Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA)
School of Art & Design
Mari Velonaki’s research is situated in the multi-disciplinary field of Social Robotics. Her approach to Social Robotics’ research has been informed by aesthetics and design principles that stem from the theory and practice of Interactive Media Art. Velonaki has made significant contributions in the areas of Social Robotics, Media Art and Human-Machine Interface Design. Her career outputs across these fields are extensive. Velonaki began working as a media artist/researcher in the field of responsive environments and interactive interface design in 1997. She pioneered experimental interfaces that incorporate movement, speech, touch, breath, electrostatic charge, artificial vision and robotics, allowing for the development of haptic and immersive relationships between participants and interactive agents. She is the recipient of several competitive grants, including ARC Discovery, Linkage, LIEF an ARC Fellowship, an Australia Council of the Arts, Visual Arts Fellowship, Australia-Japan Foundation, Fuji Xerox Innovation, AOARD.
Velonaki is a Professor of Social Robotics at Art & Design, UNSW. She is the founder and director of the Creative Robotics Lab (Art & Design UNSW) and the founder and director of the National Facility for Human Robot Interaction Research (UNSW, USYD, UTS, St Vincent’s Hospital).
Mari’s robots and interactive installations have been exhibited worldwide, including: Victoria & Albert Museum, London; National Art Museum Beijing; Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Korea; Aros Aarhus Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh; Millennium Museum - Beijing Biennale of Electronic Arts; Ars Electronica, Linz; European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck; ZENDAI Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Arts, Sydney; Conde Duque Museum, Madrid.
Websites: Creative Robotics Lab, UNSW Art & Design | National Facility HRI Research, UNSW Art & Design
Phone
+61 2 89360748
E-mail
Location
National Facility of HRI Research
Lower Ground Level A-Block UNSW Art & Design
5 Greens Road & Oxford Street, Paddington NSW 2021
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
Mari Velonaki has received over $6.91m in research funding since her first academic appointment in 2004. Her UNSW strategic funding includes an allocation of $1.40m for building works associated with construction of the National Facility for Human-Robot Interaction Research.
- Future Everything Award, Manchester UK, 2011, finalist.
- Anne Landa Award for Video and New Media Arts 2009, finalist, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, for the interactive work Fragile Balances.
- Premier of Queensland’s National New Media Art Award Exhibition, finalist, Queensland Art Gallery - Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, for the interactive work Fragile Balances.
- National Digital Art Award 1999, awarded by the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, for the interactive work Amor Veneris A.
- ARC Australian Research Fellow, UNSW Art & Design, The University of New South Wales, Australia. (2011–2013)
- ARC Australian Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Field Robotics, The University of Sydney, Australia (2009–2011)
- Senior Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Field Robotics, The University of Sydney, Australia (2007–2008)
- Co-Founder and Director, Centre for Social Robotics, Australian Centre for Field Robotics, The University of Sydney, Australia (2006– )
- ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow (Industry), Australian Centre for Field Robotics, The University of Sydney, Australia (2003–2006)
Velonaki’s multidisciplinary research has had significant impact in the domains of Social Robotics and Interactive Media Arts. In 2014 she was named as one of “25 women in robotics you need to know about” by RoboHub, one of the largest online robotics communities, bringing together experts in robotics business and research from around the world.
- By introducing a new aesthetic to the design of a social robot, Velonaki has redefined what a robot can be.
- Expanded the scope of multidisciplinarity in social robotics, a rapidly evolving field, by demonstrating the pressing need to include artists, designers, social scientists in the creation of robots that are intended to interact with the general public.
- Created novel interfaces between a human and a robot that include the modalities of movement as body language, touch as an encoder of human emotion and poetic text as a trigger for human engagement.
- Invited by Fuji Xerox Innovation Headquarters (Japan) to design a new robot for the company, to be publicly presented at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
- Estia, the largest operator of nursing homes in NSW has committed to participate in testing of a new device that is aimed at reducing stress in Alzheimer’s patients.
- Created interactive robots that are of human scale and have substantial presence in the physical world. Most of the experimental studies in Social Robotics to date have utilised ‘toy-sized robots’ such as the Nao, or even images on a computer screen, to evaluate appearance and public acceptance.
- Introduced “open experimentation” whereby robots are placed in public spaces such as major museums and public galleries and not tested only in laboratory settings. Experiments set in public spaces provide an ideal platform for acquiring more representative datasets given that the participants come from more diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and age groups.
- Velonaki has assembled two of the world’s largest datasets (over 460,000 recorded interactions) in human-robot interaction (HRI) studies that provide valuable information on the qualitative dimensions of human-machine relations.
- Evaluation of robot appearance vs behaviour. Data collected during public exhibitions of Fish-Bird show that the majority of the participants were attracted to the Fish-Bird robots not because of the way that they look but because of the way that they behave. The Fish-Bird data set represents over 315,000 interactions recorded in Australia, Austria, China, Denmark, England, Hong Kong, Korea, USA.
- Fish-Bird is recognised internationally as a significant artwork, as a state-of-the-art distributed robotic system and as an exemplary model of fully-engaged interdisciplinary research. Fish-Bird has been exhibited 14 times in museums and festivals including the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, the Wood Street Gallery and Andy Warhol Foundation, Pittsburgh, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark. Fish-Bird was demonstrated at the ARC Major Grants announcements 2009 at Parliament House, Canberra. The Fish-Bird project has also produced articles in the prestigious journals ACM Computers in Entertainment, IEEE MultiMedia, Studies in Material Thinking and seven papers in leading conferences such as the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. It has been documented in 11 books.
- Created new modalities of interaction in Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Robot Interaction, including speech (1996), breath (1997), electrostatic charge (2000), touch (1997, 2010), organic (consumption of apples; 2000), photodynamics (2003), nanoparticles incorporated in thermochromic paint (2013) as well as interfaces such as movement as body language (2004) and real-time poetic text generation (2004) developed for specific robots.
- Interview with Mari Velonaki, Australian Centre for Field Robotics. [Forty-five minute video interview; one of eight people, including Nicholas Negroponte and George Lucas, to be interviewed worldwide by CiE in 2008.] ACM Computers in Entertainment. 6(4) DOI: 10.1145/1461999.1462001.
- Best Paper Award finalist (one of three) 2016 International Conference on Social Robotics, for K.S. Haring, M. Velonaki, D. Silvera-Tawil & K. Watanabe, The influence of robot appearance and interactive ability in HRI: A cross-cultural study.
- Top 20 most downloaded papers January to July 2015, Robotics and Autonomous Systems:
D. Silvera-Tawil, D. Rye & M. Velonaki. Artificial skin and tactile sensing for socially interactive robots: A review. - Top 30 most downloaded papers January to March 2015, IEEE Sensors Journal: D. Silvera-Tawil, D. Rye, M. Soleimani & M. Velonaki. Electrical impedance tomography for artificial sensitive robotic skin: A review. This paper currently has approximately 750 downloads.
- Member of the UNSW@Home that is a finalist in the 2017 International RoboCup@home Domestic Standard Platform League competition (Sammut, Pagnucco, Thielscher, Velonaki, Hengst, Rajaratnam, Schwering, Wiley & Gratton).
- Mnemonic device for reducing stress in Alzheimer’s patients in nursing homes, Provisional Patent application, 2017.
- A novel omnidirectional robot motion base was created as part of the Diamandini project (DP0988336), currently the subject of a full patent application.
- New algorithms were created for tracking the position and walking speed of people, and for combining (fusing) information in data streams from a number of disparate sensors.
- Advances in electrical impedance tomography for creating flexible, stretchable two-dimensional artificial skin sensitive to touch.
- A user-friendly scripting language that can be used by non-specialist operators such as artists or social scientists to compose robot behavioural scripts.
Selected Keynote Addresses
- ‘Experiential design for increasing trust in human-robot interaction’, presented online at the ‘Trust in AI’ Workshop, UR 2020, the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots, 22 June 2020.
- ‘Designing technological systems creatively: a human-centric approach to AI.’ Invited by the Hon Karen Andrews MP, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Presented at Techtronic 2019: Shaping Australia’s AI Future, an event on Australian AI policy development, Old Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, 27 November 2019.
- ‘Affective robotics, cognitive analytics and user experience’, Address to Bridgestone Vice President, senior executives and digital innovation group, 4 September 2019, Bridgestone Digital Innovation Center, Tokyo, Japan, 2019.
- ‘Reimagining a future body’. Invited prime contributor to ‘REIMAGINE Action Lab’, Helsingør, Denmark, 21–24 August 2019. I was one of 12 people worldwide invited by the Enactlab not-for-profit organisation to contribute to this workshop which advised the Danish government on new assistive technology and disability.
- ‘Social robotics: Experiential design as a key driver to an engaging human-robot interaction’ Keynote speaker representing the Australian delegation to IEEE Nanjing Tech Week 2019, 27 June 2019, Nanjing, China.
- ‘How to fail gracefully: Understanding and using situational context in interactive systems’. Third Joint UAE Symposium on Social Robotics, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 4–7 February 2018.
- ‘Robótica y diseño: Donde el arte y la ciencia se encuentran’ [Robotics and design: Where art and science meet]. Address at symposium Leonardo Da Vinci, Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City, Mexico, 30 September 2015
- ‘Robótica y diseño y la intercció humano-robot’ [Design and human-robot interaction] Address to Postgraduate Conference, National University of Mexico (Postgrado UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico, 1 October 2015
- ‘Robots as participants and creators of culture’, in Workshop: ‘Cultural Robotics: Robots as Participants and Creators of Culture’, IEEE RO-MAN, Kobe, Japan, 31 August 2015.
- ‘Mari Velonaki – From responsive installations to autonomous robots’, agIdeas International Design Forum, Creative Masters Series, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 2 April 2014.
- ‘Multidisciplinarity and creativity in the field of social robotics’, Vrystaat Kunstefees Festival, Bloemfontein, South Africa, July 2014.
- ‘Identification, projection, empathy: Threading the space around human-robot interaction’, Incubator Workshop, The Geurlac Room, AD Whitehouse, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, 11 November 2012.
- ‘Art and robotics: Creation and interaction’, International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Shanghai, 13 May 2011.
- University of Athens, School of Communication and Media Arts: ‘Time and space in interactive robotic installations’, 11 March 2010.
- Keynote address presented at ‘RAISE YOUR VOICE: The Fourth National Public Galleries Summit, Australian Museums and Galleries Association, Townsville, 17 October 2009.
- ‘Multidisciplinary in contemporary art practice’, ARoS Museum of Contemporary Art, Aarhus, Denmark, 2009.
- ‘Art, science and society’, presentation at ARC Major Awards Ceremony, Australian Research Council, Australian Parliament House, Canberra, 2008.
- ‘Human-machine interactions within a contemporary art space’ Archival lecture in the series Full Screen: Explorations in New Media, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, September 2004.
Selected Invited Events
- Human Interfaces Group, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena USA, 2017.
- Alfred Mann Foundation, Valencia, USA, 2017.
- Robotics Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, 2017.
- CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society), University of California, Berkeley, 2017.
- Black Dog Institute Symposium ‘Humans and machines: A quest for better mental health’: Address: ‘Social HRI and wellbeing – an approach’, Sydney, 15 September 2016.
- Sydney Democracy Network Lecture Series: Robots: The unfinished revolution. ‘Social robotics: Thinking collaboratively’. The Great Hall, University of Sydney, 7 August 2015.
- Hawke Research Institute Workshop: ‘Robotics: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Employment’: Address: ‘People and robots in socially empowered spaces’, University of South Australia, Adelaide, 3 August 2016.
- Incubator Workshop, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA: Conducted one week workshop on Robotics Interaction Theory supported by a grant from the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, 2012.
- Victoria & Albert Museum, London UK: Conducted robotics workshop ‘Behind the scenes with humanoid robot Diamandini’, London Design Festival, 2012.
- Athens Polytechnic, Superior School of Fine Arts: Address to School – ‘Media art and cross-disciplinary collaborations’, 16 March 2010.
- Australian Government and Australia-Japan Foundation: One of three artists invited to participate in a one-week workshop ‘Australia-Japan Media Art Meeting’ at Osaka Electro-Communications University, June 2010.
- University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), Department of Art History: Address – ‘From the early kinetic sculptures to autonomous interactive robots’, February 2010.
- Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies: Invited by the ARC to speak on cross-disciplinary research at the ACFR Centre for Social Robotics, 2009.
- Fuel 4 Arts: Expert Panellist, ‘Customer as Collaborator’ think tank, London & Sydney, 2007
- Scaling up for Greater Impact”, CHASS Conference for Directors of University-based Centres. Invited speaker & panel member: Sydney, July 2006.
- State Library of Victoria: Science Week Panellist, Melbourne, August 2005.
- PMSEIC Working Group on ‘Creativity and the Innovation Economy’: Panellist to Working Group 2005.
- Museum of Contemporary Art: guest lecture, 2003, Sydney
- Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand: 2002, Wellington, New Zealand
- Presentation at European Media Arts Festival: 2001, Osnabrück, Germany
- Museum of Sydney: Panellist on ‘A bit flash: What is so new about new media?’ organised by Museums and Art Galleries Foundation of NSW. Sydney, June 2001.
- Presentation at SARAI Media Centre: 2001, New Delhi, India.
International collaboration:
- Professor Katsumi Watanabe, Waseda University, Japan.
- Professor Yoshio Matsumoto, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan.
- Professor Tomotaka Takahashi, Kyoto University, Japan.
- Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
- Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University, Japan.
- Professor Lola Cañamero, University of Hertfordshire, UK.
- Dr Ben Knott, [US] Air Force Office of Scientific Research, USA.
- Dr Kerstin Haring, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, US Air Force Academy, USA
Industry engagement
- October 2019: Invited as an expert contributor to attend and present to the G08 Artificial Intelligence Collaboration and Commercialisation Summit. Also invited to a 20-person private pre-summit working dinner to shape strategies around how Australia develops, adapts and responds to AI.
- In September 2019 the Director of the Bridgestone Digital Innovation Team, Dr Rochan Thapliya, invited me to present a keynote address and participate in a week-long workshop at Bridgestone’s global headquarters in Tokyo to identify potential areas of collaboration. We are presently planning mutually beneficial projects for short-, mid- and long-term collaboration.
- Also in September 2019 I was awarded a 4-year, $519,160 competitive research contract by the Department of Defence. The contract will involve collaboration between UNSW, University of Sydney, Defence Science and Technology and the Army.
- In May 2019 I co-organised, with Dr Teresa Crea and A/Prof David Rye, a workshop on the next developments of the Army ‘Kelpie’ project for teaming between people and autonomous vehicles over two-, five- and fifteen-year timeframes.
- A visit to, and discussions with, the Alfred Mann Foundation (Valencia, USA) in 2017 led me to re-evaluate assistive robotic technologies, in turn leading to my leadership role in the UNSW Aging Futures Institute.
- In November 2017 I was invited by Dr Scott Davidoff, Director of the Human Interfaces Group at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), to give a presentation and lead a workshop to generate conceptual designs for the next generation of human-friendly ground station user interfaces.
- In 2016 I was approached by the Innovation Team of Fuji Xerox Japan to design the prototype of a new social robot for the workplace. This request resulted in a shared-IP research contract of $360,000 over three years.
- My presentation at a workshop run by the US Air Force (AOARD) resulted in an invitation to develop a research proposal which was subsequently funded at $460,000 over three years.