We are The Workers.
We are a digital product design studio based in London
and we’ve won the Tate IK prize 2014, for our idea
which is putting four robots
in Tate Britain’s collections.
After dark these robots can be controlled remotely
via the web
and they’ll be moving round the galleries in complete darkness with spotlights.
When you come to the website, you will see the four video feeds of these robots.
We’re also going to have commentators who are going to be talking through some of the works
which come on the screen
and then you can request to take control
and this is where a lot of our effort is focused on at the moment.
We want to digitally create
the experience of being in the collection
alone at night with all these amazing artworks.
It’s a space which, during the day you can go and be part of the public
but at night you get this space to yourself and experience it.
It’s a place which you’re not supposed to be
and we want to capture that experience.
As soon as we won the prize, we were contacted by lots of different people
including RAL Space
who have been helping us with the chassis of the robot
and the different components.
There are going to be four of these robots
so we want to make sure that we capture the experience of, you might be in a room
you might turn around and just see another
creature moving across.
The robots themselves are designed so that the base is the widest part.
They are about 600mm diameter.
The only part that can actually come into contact with anything
is lower than, is about 120mm off the ground
so it’s lower than skirting board height
and the higher parts of the robot with the cameras on them are within that
600mm circumference
so they can’t touch anything.
So the only part that can bump into anything is lower
than the majority of obstacles in the gallery.
If it were to touch anything, it would touch a barrier
and that would instantly kill the robot
so that’s our serious safety measures.
There’s a servo motor here in the middle
which takes care of tilting the head up and down.
So these boxes, there’s a camera
and there’s an LED light.
So this is a 3D printed part.
These are sonar sensors, and sonar is the same thing that you use on boats
or is the same thing that bats have
and the way that this works, these are basically just little speakers that send out a sound like a ping
and then they wait for the sound to bounce off.
We're really looking forward to getting these things in the gallery running
and literally hand them over to the public to control
and have some fun with it.
I had the chance to operate a lot of robots in orbit
the huge Canadarm and Canadarm II
and I recently returned from the International Space Station
and today I’m operating a robot inside the Tate Gallery
from here in my office in Toronto, Canada
pretty amazing!
It’s really interesting to think of the artistry and the history and the technology
all wrapped up in one.
You start to forget what you’re really doing
and you just become curious about the painting itself
and the robot and your hands just become an extension of your mind
that’s how technology ought to be.