Watch retired BMW robots draw athletes’ movements at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Industrial robots once used in a BMW car factory have been given a new lease of life as key elements in a new work of art inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic games in Tokyo. The large-scale installation by the London-based design practice Jason Bruges Studio was unveiled today in Tokyo’s Ueno Park as part of the arts and culture festival Tokyo Tokyo Festival Special 13 (28 July-5 September). The Constant Gardeners consists of four robot arms each weighing more than a tonne that have been repurposed to gently rake and draw in a bed of basalt and granite gravel. The installation was inspired by traditional Japanese Zen gardening and seen as a way to counter the perception of robots as threatening and inelegant, according to the Jason Bruges Studio, which added: “By programming the robots to perform the role of Zen gardeners, we hope to challenge these notions by displaying the machines in a contemplative, graceful context.” The patterns drawn by the robots are based on the movements made by athletes in Oly