When Remotely Driving A Robot Through an Art Museum at Night Seems Like a Bummer

Now, hear me out, because, believe me, I get it. As someone who likes robots, loves museums, and can’t afford to visit Europe, I get that there’s something appealing about driving what seems to be a Roomba around the London’s Tate Britain museum after dark.

So I can sort of understand how a digital product design studio called The Workers used the idea of having flashlight-toting robots that people controlled via the internet cruising around the Tate to win the first-ever IK Prize.

The IK is supposed to “celebrate creative talent in the digital industry,” by getting people who “have previously been recognised for an outstanding digital project” to design something for the Tate, like an app, or a game, or whatever. The winner gets £10,000 and a £60,000 production budget “to realise a digitally innovative project that enhances public enjoyment of art.”

People log on and can watch the four robots driving around via a splitscreen (Goldeneye style), and—it’s not really clear how the queue system will work yet—eventually get a chance to drive one themselves. Everyone else can log on and ride along and chat. Good times right?

Now, I don’t mean to denigrate these guys. It’s a great way to get a view of the museum from the perspective of what looks like a bomb-detonating robot. But we missed a chance to make Mario 64 come closer to real life.

Another finalist, Adam Clarke, wanted to build the Tate in a Minecraft map—not just a straight recreation of the Tate, but making the space super interactive—like “climb into a painting” interactive. Look at him talk about it:

Does creating a bunch of 3D environments—particularly for non-representative paintings—run the risk of sort of distracting from the art itself? Does it raise questions about where sculpture fits in? Yeah, sure—perspective is important and all that. But fuck, man, it could’ve been a blocky Mary Poppins chalk world! And the worst part is knowing that I could've voted, but was too busy not knowing about this contest

It’s just my opinion, but I feel like if it’s going to be a mediated experience anyway, I don’t want to wait around for the museum to close and I sure as don’t want to wait for other people to finish their turn driving around. If I wanted a crowded experience with limited hours and views that are limited by what I can physically get to and see in given lighting, I’d just go to a museum.