Beggar Robot

instalation, public intervention, videos, 2006 –

Beggar Robots

As a machine built out of computer parts recycled from the ever-growing electronic junkyards, the robot (B) also bears an environmental consciousness for a world dominated by the ideology of endless development. Moreover, the robot (C) advocates the concepts of open source and do-it-yourself tactics and their consequences for social action, by allowing people to freely make their own copy of the robot. Anyone interested in obtaining the instructions of how to build their own robot replica can leave a contact with the robot, or go to the artist’s website.

Manray Hsu

Beggar Robot (compilation), 2008

Beggar Robot-DIY instructions

Make your own robot (DIY Instrcutions)

Beggar Robots made by others following the DIY Instructions. The two examples bellow show a Robotino Mendicante made in Milano and Beggar robot made in Luxemburg.

Beggar-Robotino Mendicante

Robottino Mendicante. Following the instructions, ISOLA Art Centre and the students at the Rosa Giovane high school in Milan assembled their own robot and presented it in the streets of Milan.Photo: Bert Theis & Mariette Schiltz, 2010

Beggar Robot DIY Kaspar Konig

Kaspar König’s Beggar. Kaspar König from Luxembourg assembles his own Beggar Robot. Photo: Nienke Deutz,Clark Boyd, Luxemburg, 2011

OTHER EXAMPLES AND SITUATIONS OF THE BEGGAR ROBOT:

Beggar Robot 1.01/ Qi Gai, Taipei, Taiwan
Production: Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan, 2008

Video: 16’20”

Beggar Robot 2.0/ Monogoi Roboto, Tokyo, Japan
Production: IAMAS-institute of Advanced Media art and Science, Ogaki, Japan, 2006

Video: 12’44”

Beggar Robot 1.0
Production: Gallery Kapelica, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2006

Video: 4’30”

Rent a Beggar,
Production: P74 Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2007

Documentary video about the problem of begging for money. Artist rented the Beggar Robot to the real beggars that could use the machine to do the dirty work of collecting money instead of them. Because of the symbolist –aesthetic categories of the robot it has advantages compared with human beggar, because it can enter into spaces that are off limit to real beggars. But video doesn’t shows only problems of certain groups of people that exist on the margins of society- robot also presents a strategy of improvement of beggar conditions, higher efficiency, higher viability, essentially it shows the problems of modern society, that concern everyone not just beggars.

Video: 19’30”