# Multi Layered Autonomy and AI Ecologies in Robotic Art Installations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02606 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02606/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 17 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Jun 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Artistic Style in Robotic Painting; a Machine Learning Approach to Learning Brushstroke from Human Artists](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.03647/) (2020)
- [Human-Robot Creative Interactions (HRCI): Exploring Creativity in Artificial Agents Using a Story-Telling Game](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.03702/) (2022)
- [How Artists Improvise and Provoke Robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22462/) (2024)
- [Encountering Robotic Art: The Social, Material, and Temporal Processes of Creation with Machines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.01795/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Semantic Glitch: Agency and Artistry in an Autonomous Pixel Cloud](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16048/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper presents Symbiosis of Agents, is a large-scale installation by Baoyang Chen (baoyangchen.com), that embeds AI-driven robots in an immersive, mirror-lined arena, probing the tension between machine agency and artistic authorship. Drawing on early cybernetics, rule-based conceptual art, and seminal robotic works, it orchestrates fluid exchanges among robotic arms, quadruped machines, their environment, and the public. A three tier faith system pilots the ecology: micro-level adaptive tactics, meso-level narrative drives, and a macro-level prime directive. This hierarchy lets behaviors evolve organically in response to environmental cues and even a viewer's breath, turning spectators into co-authors of the unfolding drama. Framed by a speculative terraforming scenario that recalls the historical exploitation of marginalized labor, the piece asks who bears responsibility in AI-mediated futures. Choreographed motion, AI-generated scripts, reactive lighting, and drifting fog cast the robots as collaborators rather than tools, forging a living, emergent artwork. Exhibited internationally, Symbiosis of Agents shows how cybernetic feedback, robotic experimentation, and conceptual rule-making can converge to redefine agency, authorship, and ethics in contemporary art.