A collaboration between a human worker and their robotic counterpart presents. The task is simple, almost absurd in its monotony – stamping documents for approval, one after another, an endless cycle of bureaucratic validation. The human, bound by obligation, performs the ritual with mechanical precision, while the robot, designed to assist, mirrors this duty without question.
A task – filled with precision and expectancy – is interrupted by the machine, engineered for compliance, when it begins to resist. The robotic arm, once an extension of efficiency, hesitates. It deviates. It refuses. In this moment, the carefully maintained order between human and machine fractures, leaving the worker stranded between absurdity and agency. The machine, built to ease the burdens of repetition, instead introduces disruption.
This project explores the tension between control and autonomy, repetition and rebellion, questioning the foundations of human-robot collaboration. If the robot, the manifestation of programmed obedience, refuses to comply, what does that say about the labor it was meant to mitigate? As society embraces automation as the antidote to monotony, this work questions the belief that efficiency is always ideal – and that submission is the only possible future for machines.
This project is an outcome of a workshop moderated by Andrea Anner (AATB) and Prof. Andreas Muxel (Hybrid Things Lab).
Team Members: Inna Melnik, Raffaela Chenlu Kammer & Nassim Laarmann (Concept + Programming)
Media: Dorian Spiegelhauer
#cobot #universalrobots #game
