A new project by La Fabricadecosasbonitas (The Factory of Pretty Things) has recently been awarded money as an “incentive for further production” by Vida 8.0. The Spanish activists plan to take 20 robot-demonstrators to the G8 summit, to be held in the summer of 2007 in Germany.

Their ANA project was inspired by a news article published in early 2005 on the Pentagon’s intention to send “robot soldiers” to Iraq in March of that year.

The ANA or autonomous non-violent agent project satirizes about the terrible consequences of dehumanizing armed conflict and mechanically systematizing the solution of political disputes. Given the amount of cynicism we seem able to assume, robots can replace people in some of their tasks, including killing. They might even become the actors in the new millennium’s protest movements.

The image above shows a first prototype. The superior part of the final robot could wear glasses equipped with camera, earings with microphones, clothes bearing protest messages and it would also carry posters with slogans. The inferior part is a robotic vehicle (inspired by Segway) equipped with sensors to avoid obstacles and police.
All materials are recycled.

Julio and Ã?ñigo Fernández explained that the only difference for the manifestants is that “they won’t hold the posters in their own hands but they will hold it at a distance of one mile.”