Absolut Originality | Robots in Architecture

In fall 2013, Robots in Architecture teamed up with Absolut Vodka (Pernod Ricard Austria) to create a unique robot installation for their new "Absolut Originality" limited edition vodka series.

"Taking inspiration from traditional Swedish glass crafts, every bottle of Absolut Originality has a drop of cobalt blue infused into its glass. This colouring technique has been used for centuries in hand-made art glass, but never before has it been applied to create four million original bottles. Added just as the molten glass goes into the mould at 1100°C, the drop of cobalt blue streams down inside the glass creating a unique streak of blue. At that temperature the cobalt is invisible, but as the glass cools off, a beautiful and unique blue infusion appears." >>> www.absolut.com/en/Originality

Our goal was to create unique T-shirts based on portraits of their owners-to-be via robotic spraypainting. We take a picture, transfer it via the camera's WiFi connection to a laptop and process it using a specially developed vectorizing component. This data is then passed on to KUKA|prc, which immediately previews the robot's kinematic movements and outputs a KRL file.

The spraypainting-strategy was developed in cooperation with the Viennese graffiti artist Skirl, under consideration of the robot's kinematics to create a solution that is both aesthetically and technically optimized. Hardware-wise, a customized endeffector was 3D-printed via Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and equipped with two slightly modified Colani sprayguns. On the robot side, we used a black KUKA Agilus robot whose high-speed internal air valves controlled the flow of air to the sprayguns.

Over the course of a month, the robot installation was exhibited at five locations throughout Austria: At Kare, Passage Club, Blickfang Design Fair, Elevate Festival, and Rauch Club. Producing more than 500 T-shirts (themselves limited and numbered, just like the vodka), we had a great time and the privilege of working with an excellent team around us.

CONCEPT | IDEA | EXECUTION
Johannes Braumann | Robots in Architecture
Sigrid Brell-Cokcan | Robots in Architecture
Friederike Findler | Pernod Ricard / Absolut

TEAM
Manuel `Skirl`Stehl | Graffiti Consulting
Lucie Kraus | Graffiti Consulting
Alexandra Schilling | On-Site
Florian Triller | On-Site
Constantin Dokulil | Robot Handling
Laura Kratzer | Pernod Ricard
Petra Leitner | Public Relations
Gregor Lach | Havas International
Klajd Cela | Havas International

>>> www.robotsinarchitecture.org