MIMICRY is where Drawing Operations begins.
Made in 2015, D.O.U.G._1 is a robotic arm that sees through an overhead camera and draws alongside Chung's hand in real time.

The work would become the first of five generations of D.O.U.G. — a drawing system that has evolved across a decade into neural-network training, EEG biofeedback, and monumental silver-on-linen scrolls.
Its second generation, MEMORY (2017), was acquired into the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum as the first AI model collected by a major cultural institution. 

The arc that runs from MIMICRY to the current body of work, RECURSIONS (2026), is the ten-year investigation that Chung now names Operational Art.

Drawing Operations is an ongoing collaboration between an artist and a robotic arm.

The robot mimics the artist's drawing gesture and vice 
versa in real time, resulting in a synchronous, 
interpretive performance.

This is the first stage of an 
ongoing study examining 
human and robotic 
interaction as an artistic 
collaboration.

(artist statement, 2015)

Collaborators: Sougwen Chung & D.O.U.G._1 (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation_1).

Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1 is the 1st stage of an ongoing study of human and robotic interaction as an artistic collaboration.

Generation 1:

MIMICRY

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In Generation_1, the robotic arm mimics the artist’s gesture by seeing through an overhead camera, and analyzing the movement through computer vision software. The result is a synchronicity of movement between artist and machine, captured as a drawing artifact.

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The following mimicry studies were drawn and performed at The National Art Center in Tokyo, Redbull Studios and the artists studio in New York in 2015 - 2016.

#drawingwithdoug

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Exhibition & Performance

Drawing performances are 10 minutes in length. The collaboration is entirely improvised and showcases a process of human & robotic co-creation.

"Perhaps it belongs with the avant-garde abstract expressionist movement, under the context of Clement Greenberg’s theory 
on medium specificity in which contingency is accepted as aesthetic sensibility. Rather, this collaborative performance 
between the body and a robot arm is musical." 

The performance is a 
process of slowing down, 
paying attention, and 
communicating entirely 
through gesture.

The robot mimics the artist like a partner in improvisational round singing performance. It is an AI that embraces every glitch, bug, and error. The drawing session, without pre-established harmony, frees itself from aesthetic constraints, while also examining the essence and phenomenon of beauty at the same time.

CREDITS

Sougwen Chung, Artist

In collaboration with 
Yotam Mann

Commissioned by 
New Inc / New Museum
Redbull Studios New York
New Hive

RESEARCH & REFERENCE
(2015)

Varela, Francisco, and Humberto Maturana. Autopoiesis and Cognition The 
Realization of the Living. 1st ed. D. Reidel, 1980. Print.

Nusselder André. Interface Fantasy: a Lacanian Cyborg Ontology. MIT Press, 2010.

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Suchman, Lucille Alice. Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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Rich,Adrienne. Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations. W.W. Norton & Co., 2002 

SELECTED PRESS

Interview with Maddy Varner- New Hive  
NEW INC Showcase: Sougwen Chung for Redbull Studios New York