The Senster
The Senster was a curious cybernetic sculpture-slash-beast, loosely modeled after a lobster claw. Just like The Blind Robot it can't see, but the slightest sound would capture its attention and The Senster would move towards it. Not too close though, hard sounds or sudden movement would scare him away. The Senster's creator was Edward Ihnatowicz, one of the pioneers in cybernetic sculpturing.
The Senster at the Evoluon science museum in Eindhoven (NL).
The bare bones, 'transparent' design ensures that most of the experience is driven from the interaction, which in turn was resulting from basic responses to complex audience behavior.
The Senster by Edward Ihnatowicz
You can see The Senster in action in the movie below. It was commissioned by electronics giant Philips, and one of the centerpieces in the futuristic Evoluon museum, from 1970 to 1974, in The Netherlands. The Senster could echo-locate dominant sources by using multiple microphones, and move towards it. It used radar to sense 'dangerous' movements nearby that it would shy away from.
To learn more, see the excellent senster web site by Alex Zivanovic, and the listing at Evoluon.org.
Where is The Senster now!?
Since The Senster was decommissioned (1974) and the Evoluon museum closed (1989), it was assumed to have been destroyed. But lo-and-behold, its remnants were rediscovered by fluid media archaeologists in a field in the Netherlands. They published pictures of it but not the location
After some desktop-detective work, we ourselves even found The Senster on Google Street View (Nov 2017). Happy, happy, happy, we were almost underway to visit it.
But then we discovered that it was sold in April 2017 to Cracow AGH University of Science and Technology, who brought it to Poland and have brought back to life, and exhibited at WRO Biennale 2019.. Too bad we were too late, but good that it wasn't trashed, a great initiative by AGH to preserve such an iconic piece of cybernetic art.