‘Border Crosser’ are 60 Foot Tall Inflatable – and Collapsing – Architectural Robot Sculptures #robots
Attendees to Super Bowl 50 may have seen this sculpture on view in San Jose. This is one of six proposed sculptures to line the US-Mexico border. For this project, and his other notable achievements with the arts & robots, the Brooklyn artist Chico MacMurtrie was recently awarded a Guggenheim fellowship.
Border Crossers provoke investigation of borders as constructed entities. At one level its actions embody a simple curiosity to see what lies on the other side of a border (national, architectural, environmental, etc.). On another level the work expresses a utopian desire to live in a world without borders. The project treats the border as a physical condition that can be temporarily transcended by technological proxies. It offers a critique of militarized geopolitical borders, and a metaphorical suspension of those borders in the form of temporary arches or partial arches equipped with sensing and surveillance technology.
Border Crossers invites the public to rethink the notion of borders in a globalized world. Technology currently helps to overcome cultural and economic borders, but is also frequently used to maintain and reinforce physical borders. This project envisions technology as a positive tool to establish dialogues beyond borders, to question borders, and to create a symbolic suspension and transcendence of borders.
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