Arts and engineering come together in Bristol-based documentary ‘How to Build a Robot’

In the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, David McGoran awkwardly embraces a life size robot’s angular torso. “That’s disappointing,” he remarks, grimacing at the camera. The co-founder and creative director of Rusty Squid, Bristol’s uniquely experimental studio for robotic art and design, is on a mission to create a robot that will hug back.

David McGoran, co-founder and creative director of Rusty Squid

At a screening of this one-off Channel 4 documentary, the mood in the packed out Watershed is overwhelmingly positive. Films about artificial intelligence are so often accompanied by a general atmosphere of dystopian gloom and foreboding, but the robot Rusty Squid have created is, in a word, cuddly.

“We’re hijacking robotic technology as a form of creative expression,” explains David, who is both the driving force behind the project and the human co-star of How to Build a Robot. “In the next twenty years, we think a company on the scale of Pixar will emerge which uses robotics as its creative medium. It’s going to be the industry that defines the century, so we’re trying to lay the foundations for that by bringing artists, engineers and designers together.”

The Rusty Squid studio, based behind Spike Island in the Albion Dockside Estate

This approach to robotics is certainly unusual, and generates a fascinating discussion about how we view the relationship between technology and humanity. As a robotics lecturer with a background in performing arts and puppetry, David is more concerned with the culture of engineers than with their professional expertise.

“When I studied robotics at UWE, none of them had ever seen a dance performance in their lives, and most of the engineers didn’t even know that places like Watershed existed. The cultural gap is enormous.” According to David, the fact that many engineers prioritise functionality when building machines is significant: “We’re developing technological infrastructure that is out of touch with what we truly value as being human,” he says.

The Rusty Squid team work on their latest project, a robot that can be truly loveable

The film focuses on the Rusty Squid team as they attempt to build a machine that will elicit an emotional reaction from those it meets; a lovable robot whose appeal lies in simple movements. As the documentary continues, we see the robot sitting on some recognisable street corners, with everyday Bristolians interacting with it.

And the reason for making such a simple, loveable robot? Robots as we currently think of them can understand highly complex cognitive reasoning. Yet, as David points out, “humans aren’t actually very good at that; we’re about physical contact, simple interaction and intimacy”.

Concept art for the robot

As a setting for these exciting developments, Bristol really comes into its own, David says. “Not only is it home to Europe’s biggest robotics lab and a huge software industry, it’s got music, the circus community and performing arts. As a place to bring those two worlds together it’s fantastic,” David enthuses. “What’s missing is the glue, and, as a studio, that’s what we are trying to become.”

At one point in the film, the robot asks a passer-by: “What are you for?” The reply comes back: “I’m not for anything. I’m just here”. I ask David if he thinks there will come a point when robots are not really “for” anything either.

“Absolutely. I think that’s where robotics gets really interesting. If we had a society that was purely functional, purely utilitarian, that would be a loss of our fundamental humanity. All our machines, including robots, will become much more valuable to us as humans if they move beyond just being a tool.

“We hope robots will fit into people’s lives in a more meaningful way.”

How to Build a Robot will be shown on Channel 4 at 10.35pm on Wednesday November 29 2017.