Hasta La Ideas

Eight industrial robots, on loan from Audi’s production line, will feature in Outrace, a major installation for this year’s London Design Festival

Both visitors to Trafalgar Square and users of the project’s website will be able to ‘take control’ of the 1200kg robots, which each have a reach of over three metres. Users will be asked to submit short text messages which the robots will ‘write’ using light heads from Audi cars attached to their arms (as shown in the image above from testing at Audi’s HQ in Germany).

As is the case with all such installation-based projects, the activity will be documented to be experienced second-hand by a far larger potential audience. “As a user’s message is drawn, the light trace will be simultaneously recorded through a system of high definition, long-exposure cameras, encoded as a video and relayed back to be shared across social media,” we are promised in the promotional material for the event.

The project is the brainchild of KRAM/WEISSHAAR, artists Reed Kram and Clemens Weisshaar – more here.

Outrace will be on from September 16 to 23.