The End Of Days
Posted by Ross Rosenberg
It seems that the future is, indeed, now and that the inevitable War of the Machines has come to pass. Sometime last night a sinister, sixty foot arachnid appeared on a derelict building near Liverpool’s Lime Street station. The mechanical spider is the work of art collaborative La Machine, whose previous work includes the Sultan’s Elephant, which captivated London in 2006. The £1.8 million robot was commissioned for the 2008 Capital of Culture celebrations, and is being billed as the highlights of the event.
Expected to “wake up” sometime Friday, the eight-legged monstrosity will descend the Concourse House on Thursday and begin exploring the city the day after, ending with a “spectacular finish”, which I take to mean cleansing by fire, most likely from the lasers in its many eyes. Citizens are encouraged to arm themselves accordingly. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going down into my concrete bunker. I’ll see you in the wasteland.
A more detailed photo after the jump, courtesy of this Flickr set, uploaded by kierhardie.
Huge spider is latest arts event [BBC] : Thanks, nico!
Categories: Britain, Robopocalypse, Spiders, Robots, Art
Posted at 10:03 am on September 3, 2008
12 Comments -
That is fabulous.
Comment by Damien DeBarra — September 3, 2008 @ 10:26 am
couldn’t agree more.
Comment by eva — September 3, 2008 @ 10:42 am
Oh my God.
I totally want to ride it.
Comment by Mike McGee — September 3, 2008 @ 10:48 am
Nice.
“It’s ART!” they’ll yell as they are stomped and maimed.
Comment by Narkalant — September 3, 2008 @ 10:54 am
It was a bit of a surprise when I got the bus to work this morning. Apparently it will be doing battle with a horde of scientists later in the week. Although being a scientist myself, my money is on the spider. I for one welcome our new giant spider overlords.
Comment by superOK — September 3, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
Just get in close with a machete and start hacking at all that exposed hydraulic tubing. It’ll go down in a mass of gooey white fluid like Bishop from Aliens.
Comment by Joe Shadows — September 3, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
where does it hide its weapon pods? that’s what we need to know right now. ahem, journalists.
Comment by Laconic Youth — September 3, 2008 @ 7:58 pm
I never liked spiders. Thanks for the nightmares, Ross.
Comment by Susannah — September 4, 2008 @ 7:36 am
Anyone else fighting the overwhelming urge to ride that bad boy? Oh, the havoc we could wreak…
Comment by SeanLor — September 4, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Fools, it’s just a hoax to generate buzz for the Wild Wild West sequel.
Comment by SM — September 4, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
Looks like something form Ghost in the Shell.
Comment by necrosis — September 5, 2008 @ 1:32 am
I would commit murder to see a Tachikoma wandering around London. But I’ll settle for a giant clockwork spider.
And by “settle” I mean giggle maniacally.
Comment by CJ — September 5, 2008 @ 3:40 am