10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17439
application/pdf
2038-3460
17439
2
en
James Bridle
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Autonomous Trap 001 (Cover’s Comment)
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
10
Editorial
2020-01-30
2023-06-26
2020-01-30
2023-10-09
TS
James Bridle
2019
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17439
2038-3460
2
en
Autonomous Trap 001 (Cover’s Comment)
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17439/16288
10
                                                      Cover’s comment


Autonomous Trap 001 (2017) by James Bridle

Autonomous Trap 001 is a trapping ritual for self-driving cars designed to
raise questions about autonomous vehicles. The “trap” consists of a salt
circle, a traditional form of protection – from within or without – in mag-
ical practice. By reproducing a “No Entry” road marking, the circle con-
fuses the car’s vision system into believing it is surrounded by no entry
points, and entraps it.

The car itself is a research vehicle built by the artist, who wrote the soft-
ware, equipped the vehicle with cameras and built neural networks to
transform it into a self-driving car.

The project is part of Bridle’s work and research on contemporary tech-
nologies of automation. It directs our attention to socio-technical issues
such as the automatization of labour and the power asymmetries it creates,
by allowing the imagining of a future where cab drivers chalk white lines
on side streets to derail self-driving Ubers which are putting them out of
work. In this respect, Autonomous Trap 001 might represent a new pos-
sible form of socio-technical resistance.

James Bridle is a writer and artist working across technologies and disci-
plines. His work can be found at http://jamesbridle.com.
