The robot arm jerks back and forth clasping a pen and in minutes a picture of the person staring into its camera begins to appear on the page.

This is AIKON (Autonomous/Artistic/IKONograph), a collaboration between French artist and researcher, Patrick Tresset and Goldsmiths Professor of Computing, Frederic Fol Leymarie.

AIKON has been in the works in its second incarnation since 2009 as part of a project funded by the JWT Innovation Lab but the latest version makes its public debut today at the Tenderpixel gallery in London. It’ll stay there drawing visitors until 9 July.

When you’re drawn by AIKON, it analyses the image of your face taken by its camera and interprets the data to make a sketch, drawing in a fairly jerky style with the lines slowly forming an image.

The interesting thing about AIKON is that the project aims to get the robot to a point where it draws with its own style.

AIKON’s algorithms mimic Tresset’s sketching and draw on the writings of other artists on their creative process. It is evolving with every picture it makes.

AIKON’s single drawing arm is also limited in the range of gestures it’s able to make. That means it sometimes fails to draw the line it intends to, giving its sketches a more human quality than you might expect from such an artificially created artist.

See an earlier version of AIKON in action during last year’s Kinectica art fair here.