[spectre] IAA, Nike Chalkbot Rips-off Streetwriter

[jaromil]

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FYI, by way of the Institute of Applied Autonomy

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 7th, 2009

http://www.appliedautonomy.com/index.html

Nike Chalkbot Rips-off Streetwriter

This week Nike unveiled a cool "new" chalk-writing robot used to print
messages  on the  road during  the Tour  de France  bicycle  race. The
trouble is,  the robot isn't  so new after  all. The Nike  Chalkbot is
nearly identical  to the "Streetwriter" we began  developing ten years
ago.

Since 1998, the Institute for  Applied Autonomy has been inventing and
building robots to protest the militarization of robotics research and
to reassert the public's ownership of public space. Among the machines
we  produced  were GraffitiWriter,  a  small  remote controlled  robot
capable  of printing high-speed  text graffiti  on the  pavement while
driving,  StreetWriter, a black  cargo van  capable of  printing large
text messages  the width of  a traffic lane  while driving, and  SWX a
more compact trailer version  of the same. Largely without permission,
these robots were used  to print politically controversial messages in
6 countries and  major cities across the US.  In 2004 the StreetWriter
project was  deployed as  the SWX in  protest against the  first DARPA
Grand Challenge  where its mission  was to print Isaac  Asimov's First
Rule of Robotics (i.e.: "A ROBOT  MUST NOT KILL") at the starting line
of the military robotics event.

In    pointing     out    that     the    Nike    Chalkbot     is    a
higher-resolution/higher-budget  but otherwise  obvious  descendent of
the StreetWriter (SWX), we do not claim any sort of ownership over the
project or  the idea. We  have always been  very open about  the inner
working of  our machines, publishing "how-to" plans  and helping other
artists  and  activists build  similar  devices.  While  we have  long
expected our anti-corporate project to one day be reappropriated as an
advertising scheme, we  are surprised that in this  case, the culprits
are  close associates.  According  to sources  close  to the  project,
Chalkbot was built  by an early IAA member  working under contract for
Deeplocal,  a  startup  company  founded by  a  onetime  “hacktivist”.
Deeplocal in turn is under contract with the Wieden+Kennedy PR agency,
which was  in turn hired  by Nike. The  IAA was neither  contacted nor
consulted on the Chalkbot.

Beyond wanting to reassure our friends  that the IAA had nothing to do
with the Nike project, we  issue this release because we are concerned
by the corporate appropriation of ‘outsider’ research projects without
acknowledgement  of the  amateur, collective,  hobbyist,  and activist
communities upon which projects  like Chalkbot are built. Young people
witnessing the Chalkbot on television need to know this was not handed
down  from  a corporate  research  lab, but  was  made  on nights  and
weekends by the hard work of people not unlike themselves.

We certainly understand  our friends’ decision to work  for Nike -- we
all  have  bills to  pay.  It is  unfortunate  that  as they  enriched
themselves,  they were  unable  to also  enrich  the communities  that
nurtured their own development. We  see this primarily as a failure of
imagination, which  we understand is  a common side effect  of working
too  closely  with  corporate   sponsors.  We  helpfully  suggest  the
following remedial “karma-cleansing” activities:

   1. Publish their  plans + code, in keeping with  the open nature of
      the project.

   2. Feature a historical accounting of the technical and ideological
      origins of  the robot prominently  on their website  and related
      publications.

   3. Make the Chalkbot available for use by anti-corporate activists,
      free of charge.

   4.  Provide proportional  financial  support to  new projects  that
      share the anti-authoritarian and anti-commercial aims from which
      this project emerged.

For more about the Institute for Applied Autonomy please visit:
www.appliedautonomy.com

Click here to view the IAA's "Bridging The Gap" video.

Permalink to this release.

Update: July 7, 2009

StreetWriter (SWX)

Position Paper:
Engaging Ambivalence: Interventions in Engineering Culture
Published in DataBrowser 2: Engineering Culture by Autonomedia


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ciao


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jaromil, dyne.org developer, http://jaromil.dyne.org

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  Nowadays  only  soubrettes, body  builders,  media  owners and  "the
  richest bozo  in the  pond" tend  to be elected  by a  population of
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  Fravia, April 2009, http://fravia.com/swansong.htm
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