Tweenbots is a provocative and heartening work of art.

Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

We see in a new way that low tech navigation is engaging and fun.  The project demonstrates

…the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object.

The novel anthropomorphic object certainly gets attention and appeals to people’s playfulness, but I would argue that any human empathy it gives rise to is best thought of as directed at its presumably human creator!  Just imagine the emergency response were this object suspected of being anything but a toy, more or less, that nevertheless has some purpose and meaning for somebody.

I am greatly encouraged that even after a 8 years of fearmongering, no one called the bomb squad on the tweenbot.

Such sensibility and behavior are some of the things I love about about cities, especially New York.