tweenbots, kacie kinzer (video)
I have been completely infatuated with this art project by Kacie Kinzer.
She created small types of robot she calls Tweenbots. On her site with a fabulous essay explaining her project, she explains:
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 am going to quote her at length, since she describes her project so well (sometimes I wish more artists would give background anecdotal information about their work in this way):
Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.
The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, “You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
She even includes a map of the robot’s path, with all of its modulations of misdirection and intervention. The effort to cross Washington Square park took 42 minutes and was only made possible through the assistance of 29 people.
To me this project is at once charming, clever and thought provoking. I am quite surprised that people even noticed this little robot, but I wonder how much it has to do with (in this case) parks being those interesting places in the city that people often associate consciously with recreation and rest, so that they may be more prone to observation in those moments, even while leisurely passing by.
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