SpaceX's artist-in-residence trained robot dogs to paint, and now they have their own art exhibition

Growing up in Poland, behind the "Iron Curtain," Pilat said technology was the "only hope" they had.
As an example, she highlighted Radio Free Europe, which gave citizens access to free speech or cars that "offered us freedom to move in privacy."

"When I first landed in the US and in Silicon Valley of all places, I was really surprised by the distrust Americans had for technology. I felt a desire to defend it because my childhood experience with it was so different."

She then painted a few portraits of Spot before she started actively working with it as her "creative companion." Aside from Spot, Pilat has also collaborated with Agility Robotics and worked with its humanoid robot Digit, which is being trialled by Amazon in its warehouses.

The symbols were designed with the robots' capabilities in mind. She said she never tried to replicate how human-generated paintings look.

"As for the order in which they work and the content of the message, that's all machine-generated, and I don't control or supervise it," she said. "The result has a kind of sweet and innocent quality because it's like a kindergarten for robots."

It also has docking stations where the robots, named Basia, Vanya, and Bunny, can "sleep" and can charge.

"The National Gallery of Victoria's team has been amazing to work with, and I'm especially grateful for the museum's curator, Ewan Mceoin, for placing such faith in me," Pilat previously told BI. "This has been a great team effort and it's an honor to promote a nuanced future technology can have for humanity."

The artworks created by the robots reminds Pilat of a "child learning to use crayons or fingerpaint" as she feels there is an innocence seen in their mark-making. In her view, it gives the pieces "a sense of spontaneity and playfulness."

Pilat, who is based in New York and San Francisco, says she works out of SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne and travels there every few weeks. She stays for about a week and creates paintings in a space she shares with the industrial design team. Her paintings hang on the walls of the headquarters.

SpaceX doesn't have an official artist-in-residence program. "It took a bit of convincing, finding the right connections, and presenting a vision that aligned with a mission of space exploration," she told BI.

In her view, her presence at SpaceX is "not only a privilege" but a "responsibility to give technology a voice." She thinks that's because society is concerned with how tech is rapidly advancing and the power it represents.

At SpaceX, Pilat created large-scale portrait paintings of the Dragon Hatch, the door on top of its Dragon Capsule in a series titled "Infinite." She toured the entire SpaceX factory with the team and looked at various machinery and parts.

"My first visit was extraordinary, witnessing so many brilliant minds collaboratively crafting technology that once would have seemed miraculous," she said. "It was a divine experience, inspiring me to create divine paintings. Religion and technology share numerous similarities: their power, the promise of a brighter future, and their esoteric nature to those unfamiliar with them. I view engineers as the high priests of technology."

The Infinite series embodies divine iconography and she used gold leaf and halos. The paintings are diptychs — made up of two halves — which she says symbolizes "the duality of sin and redemption."

The artist said that with robotics' integration of AI, they represent a crucial juncture in AI's evolution from the digital realm to the physical world.

"Most AI exists in the cloud, but robots make it tangible and present in our daily lives," she said. "This transition from digital to physical is what sparks the most fascinating discussions. Being an artist, being part of these conversations, perhaps even leading them, is incredibly exciting to me."

She says people who meet her and Basia in person are curious, and stop to ask questions and take photos or videos. However, some people online write mean comments under videos of them posted of them online. Sometimes they accuse Pilat of surveillance and warn about robots taking over.

"They even threaten to smash Basia or throw her into a river," she said.