Tweenbots

I like Tweenbots. Thanks to a link found in a friend's Twitter feed (@LaurenHumann) I came across a very interesting experiment called Tweenbots. Kacie Kinzer, a student in the ITP Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, when thinking one day about how pre-occupied people are in New York City with getting from point A to point B, wondered, "...could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself?" To find her answers, she created Tweenbots--little cardboard robots that only move in a straight, continuous line, with a destination written on a flag attached to its body--and unleashed them in the City.

The experiment literally consisted of dropping the Tweenbot at the Northeast corner of Washington Square Park with instructions that it is to end up at the Southwest corner. Using a hidden camera in her purse, Kacie followed the robot as it traversed the rough terrain of pot holes, curbs and benches in the park, held at the mercy of the passerby. The results are pretty entertaining.

The first Tweenbot mission garnered much attention from pedestrians, 29 to be exact, and took just 42 minutes to complete. Most everyone complied with the instructions on the Tweenbot's flag, save the few who pointed it in the opposite direction to keep the little guy out of harms way. Since then, there have been numerous missions, according to Kacie, and each time the Tweenbot reached its destination with only the help of complete strangers. Most interesting to her (and to me), "...was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people's willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone."

I am impressed at the generosity of New Yorkers to the cardboard robot. My question, though, is whether people would act the same if it were a human being that moved in a straight, continuous line with their destination written on a flag attached to their body? Now THAT would be an entertaining video (and maybe a true measurement of human empathy towards a vulnerable, lost creature). Regardless, Kacie has done a great job with this unique project and I look forward to keeping tabs on future Tweenbot missions. Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the comments section.