Drawing a Life-Sized Map of a City in the Desert with a Robot


Thu, Jan 26th, 2012 12:00 by capnasty NEWS

Inspired by the desert drawings still visible today left in the Peruvian desert by the ancient Nazca, the Nazca City project has a robot moving around drawing a city map on the sand.

From the description found on YouTube:

"Nazca City" is a land art project, the drawing of a true scale map of an imaginary city onto the surface of the Peruvian desert. To do this we built a robot which moves autonomously, plowing the ground to uncover its underlying color. Because of its scale, the map can only be appreciated as a whole from certain a height by means of airplains or satellite imaging.

The project is inspired by the gigantic figures drawn onto the desert by the ancient Nazca culture (200 BC - 600 AD), which can still be seen today. It invites to reflect upon the explosive urbanization of the deserts of the Peruvian coast, taking place since the middle of the last century, and its consequences on environmental sustainability and the quality of living.



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