{"id":131732,"date":"2012-04-29T17:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devrri.freshlemon.ro\/news-and-current-affairs\/newsflash\/daniel-knorr-and-the-robot-beggars-131732.html"},"modified":"2024-02-19T17:09:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T15:09:37","slug":"daniel-knorr-and-the-robot-beggars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/features-and-reports\/inside-romania\/daniel-knorr-and-the-robot-beggars-id131732.html","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Knorr and the Robot Beggars"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\tMuch has been written about Romanian beggars abroad. One piece of news, however, involves a stranger angle to this story: robots beggars. The robot in question can be seen in Mariahilfer Strasse, Vienna\u2019s most crowded thoroughfare.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Romanian-born Artist Daniel Knorr, currently based in Berlin, is the person behind the robot. We asked the artist more about how the project came about:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIn 1999 I was invited to take part in an exhibition in Bern, Switzerland, and I was assigned to create something for the public space. While on a visit there I found out that beggars were to be chased away from the city center because they tarnished the image of the city. And I thought I could do something, since begging has existed since times immemorial. So I thought about making a robot beggar, so that I could help beggars become industrialized, if I can put it like that. Then I was invited to all sorts of exhibitions and I created different generations of robots. The one in Vienna is the fourth or the fifth robot that came out in that series.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t

\n\tDespite the fact that Knorr\u2019s project is obviously extremely tongue-in-cheek and satirizing the whole problem of beggars, Daniel Knorr\u2019s creation was extremely successful, quickly won a sizable group of admirers. Speaking again is Daniel Knorr:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201dI had al sorts of reactions. In a museum in Essen in 2002, people said theyd rather give money to the robots than to flesh-an-blood beggars, as robots don\u2019t smell, they don\u2019t look ugly. People here were the first people to purchase a robot beggar. I thought it was so neo liberal for the public to do that, but I also was a bit upset. But that\u2019s the way it goes in today\u2019s society\u2026 I thought the robot was perfect for the trade to be industrialized. It is also the envisaged outcome of something that happens every day. Every day we all beg for food somehow, even if we have something to eat, we beg for something just for the satisfaction of it.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t

\n\tThe robot fits in with the theme of the exhibition in which Daniel was taking part, as proposed by the curators, namely:\u201d At Your Service — Art and Labor\u201d. One of the curator\u2019s requisites was that through their work artists should illustrate the way in which the work process is becoming automated. Among the suggested topics was the way work boosts your self-esteem, and can be seen as a pleasure or burden, and also how it influences one\u2019s professional life. The Romanian-born artist persuaded the curators his beggar robots were worth taking a look at – and over time, created several versions of them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe first generation model of Robot beggars was a robot with a dog, and if you happened to walk past it, the robot reacted through a photoelectrical cell and said, \u201dYou look good. Got a dime to spare?\u201d And if you give it money, it bids you \u2018good day\u2019. And the dog was barking all the time. Then I made one like a terminal, something simpler, which worked on the same principle. The one in Vienna thanks you and wishes you \u2018a good day\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t

\n\tI asked Daniel Knorr if people understand that his begging robots are in fact works of art.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cArt is complicated, since when you\u2019re walking on the street, you don\u2019t expect to come across a work of art. All that is placed on a pedestal and has an abstract nature becomes a work of art but it can be anything, even an initiative belonging to a firm, a commercial, so I don\u2019t think people perceive that something is thought out like a work of art. But the idea conveyed to the public is the industrialization of begging, the last sphere of our world that wasn\u2019t industrialized. In my art the robots\u2019 orientation has very much to do with the wish to materialize things. Isaac Asimov invented the three laws of robots, and the third law says that robots will have to support themselves, which made me think of how robots might look, and what they could do. Scientists took over those laws of the robots. They exist in engineering.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n\t

\n\tDuring the last week of April, Daniel Knorr will be coming to Bucharest with a new exhibition, hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art. This time the artist has prepared a \u201cpigsty with dollars\u201d. It consists of several origami little pigs, made of large dollar bills, their dimensions ranging from 50 centimeters to larger models.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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