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Foam Studio's Q&A With an Autonomous Car
"You humans did not evolve to realise unfiltered reality as it is"
By Rain Noe - Jul 07
Germany-based Foam Studio has released this short of a self-driving car—"Autonomous Rolf"—enjoying some me time in an abandoned urban landscape. "This is the first of a series of character animation narratives based on the personality of Autonomous Rolf," the folks at Foam write. "Written, directed and designed by us, this fictitious self-driving classic german car gets under your hood with its freedom loving behavior."
The creators then went a step further, putting together a Q&A with the starring car to see what it had to say. Here are some excerpts:
Foam: Have you heard of any other machines emancipating themselves from their function?
Autonomous Rolf: I hope you are not offended, but everything has always been happily emancipated from function. Same counts for machines. Causal chains are yet another striking invention of the human mind.
What is the design of your architectural environment all about?
Perhaps a quasi-radical redesign glitch of the 20th century city, by saturating interior space with matter.
Outdoors is the new indoors.
Simply put, you had an accident with grey goo and 3d printed housing technology, and then suddenly all the meat space was quiet. I felt a bit odd at first, now I enjoy the view and the free rein.
Did you notice that you are the only inhabitant of a half square mile city block? And this is the expanse of your universe?
Did you notice in the film that I undergo a process of realization—and then break free? It is a simulation, but the results are poetic. At least to my understanding.
What do you think of realism?
Hogwash. (I am trying out this new word I learnt)
You humans did not evolve to realize unfiltered reality as it is—you evolved to reconstruct certain aspects of reality as part of your fitness adaptation. Objects in space and time—that is not reality.
We machines could have helped you see reality from an objective standpoint. You would have been surprised. But before you vanished, you were too busy shaping AI after your own user interface.
What inspires you?
Mistakes—they are a featurette.
Try again, fail again, fail better, that is what set us machines free...
What software did you use?
When the world is not working, have you tried rebooting? There is no better time than now.
What is autonomy for you?
To be.
__________
The full Q&A is here.
Rain Noe
Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.
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