Robot DJ’s

Another of this year’s Nextfest attendees was the Juke Bot duo from German art group Robotlab. The group uses industrial robots, from German manufacturer KUKA, to make various installations and experiments. The Juke Bots are programmed to spin, mix, scratch and do all the things you’d expect from a typical DJ.

At Nextfest PSFK got the opportunity to speek with one of the artists. He said they had been working with industrial robots for quite some time and that the point of the art was to take something industrial and not really artful and do something artful with it. The Juke Bots are not a project planned for any kind of production and they are not meant to be a replacement for their human counterparts. They have been displayed in a number of settings from churches to clubs and festivals. The Robotlab website has a number of excellent photos and videos from various venues and pictures of other projects the group has done.

Having seen the Juke Bots in action I think they would make a very nice addition to a lot of clubs. While they are, as mentioned, not planned for production I would say given the bar tab of a few DJ’s I know, a custom built set of Juke Bots might just pay for itself after a while.