Robots track Tokyo 2020 Olympic highlights to create public art
In The Constant Gardeners, Jason Bruges Studio’s new public art installation, four robotic ‘gardeners’ use live data from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to create striking artworks
Coinciding with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, London-based Jason Bruges Studio has unveiled a new outdoor art installation blending art, sport, computing and the ancient tradition of the Japanese Zen garden.
Staged in Ueno Park, Tokyo, The Constant Gardeners is a performative piece that sees a team of four robots create illustrations by raking patterns into a canvas of crushed black basalt. Analysing past video footage from across a wide range of sporting disciplines and events, The Constant Gardeners communicate and celebrate the motion and physicality in professional athletics.
The Constant Gardeners draws on the aesthetic and craft of the traditional Japanese Zen garden, and from the sportspeople who meticulously hone their movements to reach the top of their game.
In daily performances, the ‘gardeners’ will collaborate to create 150 unique illustrations throughout the Olympics. Some will showcase the story of an event unfolding over time, while others will shine a light on a single spectacular movement or sporting moment.
The robotic performances are linked directly to the schedule for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, using data read from video clips athletic performances. The aim is for the artwork to complete at least one illustration for every discipline.
‘By developing new paradigms in robotics and performative arts, we hope to show how innovative technologies can be used in storytelling, offering audiences in Tokyo an accessible, meaningful experience that celebrates the Tokyo 2020 Games and the incredible skill and achievements of its athletes,’ explains Jason Bruges.
Forming part of the Tokyo Festival Special 13, the installation was commissioned by The Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Arts Council Tokyo and is delivered in collaboration with the British Council as part of the UK/Japan bilateral season.
Top: Content development, pattern generation from video, vertical Line Distortion. Above: content development, pattern generation from statistical data, differential growth, layered. Courtesy Jason Bruges Studio
The robots used in Bruges’ installation were reclaimed following a lifetime in industry, working to produce cars in a BMW factory. Each was reconditioned and repainted for its new role, but it didn’t come without hurdles. The robots were originally designed to perform minimal, industrial, and endlessly repeating movements.
Using the robots to undertake complex choreographed tasks they are not designed to perform is a different ball game. To harness this technology for creative and experimental purposes, Jason Bruges Studio had to create a custom control program to ‘hack the system’.
INFORMATION
The Constant Gardeners by Jason Bruges Studio, on view in Fountain Square, Ueno Park, Tokyo until 5 September 2021. theconstantgardeners.art
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Deathmatch wrestling’s behind-the-scenes moments and bloody glory
A new limited-edition book explores the intersection between art and deathmatch wrestling at a sold-out show held in Tokyo
By Anne Soward Published
-
Heads up: art exhibitions to see in January 2024
Start the year right with the Wallpaper* pick of art exhibitions to see in January 2024
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Olafur Eliasson inaugurates Azabudai Hills Gallery in Tokyo
Olafur Eliasson marks launch of Azabudai Hills Gallery, in Tokyo’s major new district, with a show of elemental strength
By Danielle Demetriou Published
-
Photographer David Abrahams captures quiet moments in Japan for his new London show
‘Kyushu’ is a new show from photographer David Abrahams that documents his trip to a town on the Japanese island
By Mary Cleary Published
-
John Pawson unveils first-ever sculpture in Tokyo exhibition
At The Mass, Tokyo, British architect John Pawson stages his first solo exhibition in Japan, revealing his first sculpture and a new photography series
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Remote Antarctica research base now houses a striking new art installation
In Antarctica, Kyiv-based architecture studio Balbek Bureau has unveiled ‘Home. Memories’, a poignant art installation at the remote, penguin-inhabited Vernadsky Research Base
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Ryoji Ikeda and Grönlund-Nisunen saturate Berlin gallery in sound, vision and visceral sensation
At Esther Schipper gallery Berlin, artists Ryoji Ikeda and Grönlund-Nisunen draw on the elemental forces of sound and light in a meditative and disorienting joint exhibition
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Cecilia Vicuña’s ‘Brain Forest Quipu’ wins Best Art Installation in the 2023 Wallpaper* Design Awards
Brain Forest Quipu, Cecilia Vicuña's Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern, has been crowned 'Best Art Installation' in the 2023 Wallpaper* Design Awards
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published