A fly-catching clock, pest-control lampshade (above) and mouse-eating table all together make for one hungry living room. But if you're into cyborg, self-sufficient furniture, incorporating carnivorous robots into the design is one way to go.
Designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau are working on it. As part of a conceptual project to rethink how robots could fit into our lives, the duo has created a set of autonomous household objects that each perform both a regular function (like “table”) and a technological one (like “digital clock”). But instead of going for solar power or some other renewable source of energy, they decided bugs and rodents could do the job. Not sure I'd want to put my mug on the cheese-baited mouse-eating coffee table though.
The table baits a mouse up through one oversized leg and to the center of the table, where a trapdoor opens and they fall into a chamber full of microbes which digest the rodent and use the energy to power the table's electronics (presumably the sensor that detects the mouse). Similarly, a digital clock is powered with the same type of microbial fuel cell, collecting its prey with flypaper. A spherical lampshade with holes modeled after the infamous Pitcher plant lures flies in, but they are unable to escape and eventually fall into the bottom of the light, where they become fuel. They've also modified a UV fly-zapper to retrieve power from the fly corpses it creates.
These robot meat eaters are mostly for entertainment, and we use the term loosely. One design has no real function; the fly “stealing” robot plucks flies from spiderwebs on its surface when they are detected with a camera. Some of the projects have “power bars”which people can watch filling up as the furniture digests.
This video explains the philosophy behind the creations and describes each project in more detail.
Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots from Auger-Loizeau on Vimeo.
Art meets technology meets horror – why the dark design twist? In part meant to provoke thoughts of life and death, the designers also find similarities between the “dark humor” of their projects and social trends. From Auger's and Loizeau's website:
We liken this to the keeping of exotic pets in the home where live prey is fed to a pet lizard or spider and the consequent feeding spectacle becomes a point of fascination often recorded on camera and posted on video sharing websites. It also reflects on the current fascination with reality television programs such as Wife Swap and Big Brother.
A table-eat-dog world is no better than a dog-eat-dog one? Tell me in the comments whether you find these designs more amusing or repulsive.
Tags: Alternative Power Sources, Design, Home Energy Use, Robots
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