The Paparazzi Bots
The Paparazzi Bots (a project by Ken Rinaldo) are a series of five autonomous robots each standing at the height of the average human. Comprised of multiple cameras, sensors and robotic actuators on a custom-built rolling platform, they move at the speed of a walking human, avoiding walls and obstacles while using infrared sensors to move toward humans. They seek one thing, which is to capture photos of people and to make these images available to the press and the world wide web as a statement of culture’s obsession with the “celebrity image” and especially our own images. The flash autonomously goes off, capturing people’s photos and elevating them to “celebrity” in a kind of momentary anointing by the robots. The robots also become celebrities through their association to the “famous people” at the exhibition that are captured by the Paparazzi Bots.
