Robo Joe Meets Artemis

By Sloan Conners, Sales and Design Assistant at Artaic

From R2D2 to the Terminator, Joe Taveras and Artaic agree, robots are as cool as it gets. Joe is a Boston based artist and roboticist who has spent the majority of his career selling robots around the world. He consistently aims to push the boundaries of innovation with his art, exploring new techniques that reflect his environment and our interminable integration with technology. Both Taveras and Artaic share the same passions for innovation, art and yup, you guessed it! Robots.

Taveras Portrait By Ben Flythe

Artaic was founded in 2007 with the mission to make the beauty and artistry of the mosaic medium more accessible. Through sophisticated design software and innovative robotic mosaic assembly systems, Artaic brings the ancient art of mosaic into the modern age through innovative technologies.

Fast forward 11 years, towards the end of 2018, Taveras was brought onto the Temi team to help them launch their product to the world: the world’s first personal robot. Temi, which is connected to an open-source software development kit, has a wide range of use-cases from being an in-store shopping assistant, an office telepresence tool, or even a tele-health solution for hospitals and senior living communities. We want one!

In an effort to spread the technology, Joe found himself on a flight several times each week bringing the robot to places like Tokyo, Melbourne, Vancouver, Vegas, and more. As Joe introduced the robot to thousands of people around the world, he saw similarities in the way in which these people’s eyes opened to the idea of this futuristic technology. This perspective expansion aggregated over time, but it wasn’t until the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic that he started to paint. Joe’s experiences with the robot continuously influence the underlying concepts within his artwork as he subconsciously tells positive stories about the future.

“Sometimes my ideas manifest as simple line drawings, other times they appear as falling more in line with abstract expressionism, and other times they are more cubist in nature. Throughout my work though, I can see a motif of leaning into the future.”

At Artaic, we give artists the necessary tools to translate their work into the mosaic medium, making it overall more accessible, and their art scaleable. Our proprietary software, Tylist allows for visualization and virtual manipulation prior to the fabrication process.

“Just because we cannot see an array of lines and curves in between objects with our human eyes, doesn’t mean that is the way things really are. For example, when a robot is planning a path from point A to point B, it is rapidly simulating a huge number of potential outcomes and, for a brief moment, that robot may see those lines and curves.”

When utilizing our software system Tylist, we were able to bring Taveras’ futuristic vision to life in a permanent and stunning manner that reflects his unique painting style in the form of a Vitreous Glass mosaic masterpiece. To see more of Joe Taveras’ work, head to his website www.robojoebot.com or find him on Instagram @robojoebot. If you would like to see your creative vision brought to life, feel free to reach out!