Inherently Flawed
Sisyphus, the mountain, and the boulder as one
Robots and other artificial creatures are often made with a purpose in mind; either to do something humans cannot or do not want to do, or to do it better, or faster. But what if a robot is inherently flawed, built in such a way that it will never achieve its aim? Inherently Flawed is an exploration of trying to overcome an obstacle when the obstacle is you. We wanted to build a creature that, in the context of the Sisyphean myth, was Sisyphus and the mountain and the boulder.
AC-demo.mp4We realized this creature in a simple form, built mainly out of wood to emphasize the mechanical nature of our creature: governed by natural physics rather than a hi-tech approximation thereof. We wanted to keep the visual fairly simple to emphasize the repetitiveness of the creature; even as it continuously struggles to surpass the obstacle it creates, it does not vary its methods, meaning that it will never succeed even if a more simple solution is not that far away.
We built our creature out of simple, natural materials to emphasize the mechanical simplicity and balance of our creature.
(direct link to video: here)
By Ilse Arwert and Rebecca Rui