ADC-Preis für den „Pankraz Piktograph“

Award for Felix Fisgus and Joris Wegner

The Art Directors Club Germany (ADC) honors outstanding communication and design achievements of young creatives with its Talent Award.

The award commended the HfK master's thesis "Explorations in Automated Artistic Portrait Drawing" by Felix Fisgus and Joris Wegner in the category "Craft / Innovative Technology / Digital Skills / Creative Use of Technology / New Technology" during the ADC Festival 2022 in Hamburg.

What the two artistically creative technologists have scientifically researched and practically realized is the "Pankraz Piktograph", an autonomous portrait drawing robot. Inspired by historical drawing automata such as "Maillardet's Automaton" and more recent examples such as Patrick Tresset's "Paul the Robot", Felix Fisgus and Joris Wegner built a robot that draws the portraits of passers-by at science or trade fairs, museums or other events. "Instead of providing visitors with normal photos as souvenirs, as commercial selfie boxes or photo booths do, our robot makes the creation of the souvenir image an event in itself," the digital media alumni said. Fisgus has led the electronic experiments workshop at HfK since fall 2021.

How the robot works? It takes a portrait of its user after the user presses a button on a wired remote control. The resulting image is then translated into a vector representation that can be drawn by the automaton. The "Pankraz Pictograph" is capable of various drawing styles, from quick minimalist line drawings to abstract representations and finely rendered portraits. Each drawing is an exclusive and unique work of art and comes with a serial number.