Analog Cyborgs Created From Post-Apocalyptic Materials

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

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We watch so many dystopian movies nowadays with nothing but evil and depression running amok, such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day or Robo-Cop, and we may forget that even a post-apocalyptic Earth will still function a place of great imagination and ingenuity. The KIKK Festival in Namur, Belgium celebrates the future of creativity within digital cultures, and this year’s festivities featured the working theme “Next Utopia,” and designers Niklas Roy and Kati Hyyppä put together a workshop that focused on making practical “cyborgs” with body additions that could be created from everyday materials that could be found in an analog world. No computers. No electronics. Just good old fashioned physics and awesomeness.

The supplies used by this duo and the rest of the participants consisted mostly of “post-apocalyptic plastic trash from one Euro shop, some medical gear and plenty of useful things form the hardware store around the corner.” And then the magic began.

While it may not be everyone’s first instinct, something that people are going to want to do in a futuristic wasteland is drink. Sure, everyone wants water, but I’m talking more about about something a little more flammable. Enter the Bar-Borg, the creation of Camille, a rainbow-colored contraption that dispenses five different drinks into numerous combinations decided by a the push of a button, which spins two modified ashtrays to decide on the imbiber’s prize drink. Sure, it could just be juice or soda or something, but where’s the fun in that? Check out the device below.

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And you can’t sit back and have a drink on your banana peel front stoop without some tunes, am I right? Yordi and Sam put together a sonic cyborg system that creates tones and rattles that the user can hear through hoses connected to the ears. It’s powered by the listener walking around, so it’s essentially a soundtrack machine. Can it play the Beverly Hills Cop theme? Probably not, but listen to its work below.

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One form of art can’t go without another, and so Martin and Xavier created an exoskeleton that can be used to spray-paint graffiti in high places using hot air and tie wraps. And more.

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And then, of course, there are more practical contraptions, like the one seen below that is equipped to shoot a magnet and return it to the shooter, and which can absorb liquids through the right-hand pinky using a small pump. There’s also a fiber-optic strand connected to a finger, allowing the user to find light.

magnetborg

Roy and Hyyppä created a couple of devices themselves. One is a head-mounted mirror contraption that allows the wearer to see a foot or so above his or her height. And then there’s the automatic rainbow maker, for those days when absolutely nothing seems to be going right.

head extender cyborg

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Of course, it’s only a matter of time before society would begin creating beasts similar to those in Frankenstein’s Army, but it’s always nice to be positive.