#Botjoy
About the Bots
What are the Bots?
The Bots are small (and sometimes, big) totemic, art objects programmed to help. They are created by me, Gary Hirsch, an artist and consultant living in Portland Oregon.
I wake up everyday thinking about how art can help and the Bots have been my vehicle for doing this in (hopefully) a delightful and surprising way.
I experiment with the Bots by making thousands painted small on the back of dominos (most recent Bot count is 50,456) , and a few painted giant on the sides of buildings. Please steal this idea and make your own.
Where the idea came from
the birth of the bots
The idea for the Bots came from a sketch I did in 2000 as a prompt (see image on the left) in a co-creativity journal for my other endeavor On Your Feet . Weirdly tons of folks came back to me after receiving this drawing telling me all of the wonderful things that their invisible robot was telling them. So...
- We decided to make the Bots real (not just invisible and imaginary) by painting t hem on the back of dominoes so you could carry them around in your pocket.
- I started leaving Botjoy on the streets as gifts for random strangers to find. I donated Brave Bots to children's hospitals. I paint them as big as I can in mural and street art form. To date I have made over 50,000 Bots and I am always looking for new ideas for using them to help folks that might need one.
Stealing the idea!
In 2014 I "Let go" of the Bots and invited the world to make them too. When you can let go of a creative idea and invite others in everyday is full of surprise and delight! For instance, recently I woke up to an NYTimes article featuring the amazing work that Whitney Lawerence, a Dallas Art teacher, is doing with her students.! Surprise! Delight! and something I won't have experienced if I had held fast to the idea!
New Project For 2018:
The CURIOSITY WALL
60 feet wide 20 feet tall. SE 17th and SE Rhine, Portland Oregon
Socialize
