Photo by Chris Reed

Robot Monkey Chimpionship at tbd

Last Saturday, humans and robots alike congregated at tbd bar on Franklin Street to watch the Robot Monkey Chimpionships—an art installation-slash-all-out battle between teams of robot creatures, conceived and constructed by local Brooklyn artist Dan Walker.
The Robot Monkey World Chimpionship is a constantly evolving multimedia interactive art installation in which audience members compete using modified remote controlled toys in a scale model sports arena. Two teams of Robot Monkeys played against each other on Saturday—a red team and a blue team—in a series of soccer-style tournaments as Walker and his crew provided color commentary and special effects, including hundreds of toy sports fans that would occasionally “riot and storm” the field. The entire spectacle was captured on live camera and projected on large screen for all spectators to enjoy.

The installation—which is, to an extent, half-art, half-sport—is to be construed as a satirical view of the fanaticism, hype, and over saturation of advertising surrounding sporting events: The arena, as well as the Robot Monkeys themselves, are covered in sponsorship advertising, some real, some purely for effect.
“It’s a team sport you can play without having to go outside and get sweaty, and you don’t need much skill, and there aren’t too many sports like that around,” Walker said. “The robots themselves are constantly evolving and changing. I add things to them all the time. This time, each robot was branded by a sponsor—they started off as box tops and labels from products I had around my house, but then I decided to get real sponsorship so all the signs in the stadium are real Brooklyn businesses.”
The sponsorship money is going towards a trip to Chicago—Walker hopes to participate in a multi-media art exhibition during which he, along with several other artists, will represent the Brooklyn art scene (hence the emphasis of Brooklyn-based businesses). Even Saturday’s Chimpionship was, in and of itself, a subtle little nod to Brooklyn—It was a battle between robots sponsored by businesses based in Williamsburg and businesses based in Greenpoint. Unfortunately though, the winner can barely be considered as either: The owners live in Brooklyn, but run their business out of Manhattan. What to do about this, Walker said, would be to call the Commissioner for an official ruling.
“That scandal will be taken up with the commissioner,” Walker said in utmost seriousness. “I, of course, was rooting for Greenpoint, because I live here. But I have to be impartial because I am the creator. Ok also, I am technically the Commissioner too.”