Roomba Light Art: Vacuums as Artists

So as it turns out, Roombas, aren’t just high-tech cleaning gizmos and awesome transportation for kittens, but they’re also the Bruce Naumans of the vacuum world. These photos represent timelapsed Roomba light art paintings made by robotic vacuum cleaners, and, ostensibly, their programming companions. Designboom, from whence all these photographs come, explains it like this:

In the most basic renditions, Roomba owners attach coloured LEDs to the devices and let them roam for the duration of a long-exposure photograph. More enterprising photographers, like the IBR algorithm group at Germany’s Braunschweig University of Technology, create designs by constructing obstacles, thereby designating space that the Roombas cannot pass into and which thus remains dark. Flickr user Reconscious utilized accelerometer-driven LEDs so that the colour light varied depending on the Roomba’s movement.

Suck it, Dyson! And yep, I think we’re looking at further examples of OCD Art. These really are exciting to look at. Of course, it does beg the question: If cats can drive Roombas, and Roombas can paint pictures and cats can be photographers…how soon until we see a cat driving a Roomba making light paintings? (Hopefully soon now that the idea is in my head, and I can’t afford my own Roomba!) For more Roomba art, check out this Flickr pool. (Also, flashback to last October’s Electrolux “Art in a Vacuum”.)

[Info and pics via Designboom]