Please join Emory University's Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture for a lecture entitled "Embodied Creative Machines" by Gil Weinberg, Founding Director of the Center for Music Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Reception to follow.

Abstract: Human creativity is directly linked to embodied interaction with the physical environment. At the Robotic Musicianship Group at Georgia Tech, we explore how embodiment effects and enhances both human and artificial creativity. The talk will present a wide range of robotic projects developed at Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology over the last 20 years, from robotic musicians that compose, improvise, and interact with humans in a variety of musical genres, through robotic dancers that respond to human movement, to prosthetic robotic arms that enable amputees to play musical instruments.

Bio: Gil Weinberg is a professor and the founding director of Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, where he leads the Robotic Musicianship group. His research focuses on developing artificial creativity and musical expression for robots and augmented humans. Among his projects are a marimba playing robotic musician called Shimon that uses machine learning for Jazz improvisation, and a prosthetic robotic arm for amputees that restores and enhances human drumming abilities.

Weinberg presented his work worldwide in venues such as The Kennedy Center, The World Economic Forum, Ars Electronica, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum, SIGGRAPH, TED-Ed, DLD and others. His music was performed with Orchestras such as Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the National Irish Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish BBC Symphony while his research has been disseminated through numerous journal articles and patents. Dr. Weinberg received his MS and PhD degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and his BA from the interdisciplinary program for fostering excellence in Tel Aviv University.