Syndicated from Some Brisbane Guy, by the same clown
If you’re lost in a big city like, say, New York City, a very effective way to be sure that strangers will help you find your way is to be a small, helpless, cute cardboard robot with a flag that has your destination written on it.
Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.
I love this. I love seeing the ways people conceive of using technology to make art. It’s not just that the technology exists, but that it’s affordable and readily available to be used by anyone who really wants to make it happen. The artist here “conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination,” but it didn’t matter because they were cheap enough. She was also able to preserve the authenticity of the situation by having a video camera small enough to fit into her handbag, so it wasn’t obvious she was recording people’s interactions with the robots. Try hiding a camcorder from the 1980s in a handbag!
So remember: next time you’re lost in a big city, be a little cute cardboard robot.
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