A big thank you to my friend Lindsay for alerting me to this project by a student in New York. Her intention is to explore the imaginative use of communications technologies and see how they might 'augment, improve and bring delight and art into people's lives.'
To this end, she built a 'human-like object' which rolls in a straight line with a destination displayed on a flag. It relies on people it meets to read this flag and to aim it in the right direction to reach its goal. She wondered if people with their cynicism and paranoia would bother to help a lost little robot.The results are nauseatingly cute and overwhelmingly heartwarming. Curiously I imagine that New York and London would be two places where this experiment might succeed. There is humanity and compassion in these cities; it just manifests itself in a slightly odd way. This is truely one from the 'restore your faith in human nature' files.
No comments:
Post a Comment