Mower

July 2008

With reference to Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", and allusions to green/sustainable practices of using sheep to maintain lawns (for example in city parks in Curtiba, Brazil). The project places a robotic sheep (equipped with mowing and obstacle avoidance apparatus) on the lawn of Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens that autonomously roams around, trimming the grass as it goes. The project is not an attempt to build a better lawn mower, but rather a whimsical and symbolic juxtaposition of two systems for labor and servitude, the machine and the domesticated animal, and explores possibilities and alternate visions of the robot in society.

Material: Styrofoam, wood, aluminum, electronics, motors

Dimensions: 54"x36"x34"

Exhibitions:

Robot 250 - Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden, Pittsburgh, USA. July 2008

Wired NextFest - Millenium Park, Chicago, USA. Oct 2008