Issue 04
BOX BOTS
By Matthew Newton
Life in the 21st century often feels like a farce. Where are the flying cars, food pills, and robot butlers we were promised? Are Segways, downloadable ringtones, and low-carb bread the best today’s brilliant minds have to offer? What a fucking disappointment. Humans used to be more ingenious. We invented cars, atomic bombs, vaccines, and television. Maybe we ran out of ideas, or, even worse, maybe it was all just dumb luck. Either way, while most of us are scratching our heads, wondering where the hell it all went wrong, Minnesota native Jonathan Keller is busy making a futuristic vision of subservient robots a reality, one empty cardboard box at a time.
With his primitive yet colorful BoxBots, a legion of one-dimensional robots fashioned from the packaging remnants of everything from fabric softener to lightbulbs, Keller has taken a fresh approach to recycling that’s far more appealing than wearing a seat belt to hold up your pants or giving your girlfriend a purse made from an old, bent-up license plate.
“When I was [living] in Antarctica, I really got into this project from the aspect of waste re-use, turning trash to treasure, that sort of thing,” Keller says. “I was just pulling boxes that I thought looked nice and would make for a good BoxBot. It [also] helped that I worked as a janitor and saw a good deal of trash.”
The process is fairly simple, requiring nothing more than an X-Acto knife, some tape, a pair of tweezers, and about an hour of time. But while he’s quick to downplay the originality and complexity of his creations, it’s obvious that some deeper thought goes into each BoxBot he builds.
“I get the packaging from some product I bought, cut it up, tape it together. It’s that simple…sort of,” Keller confesses. “I like to only use lines and shapes that are actually in the design of the packaging, which can make it hard to get a shape that looks like an arm, leg, or head.” Keller manages to convey expression and character through the perfect arrangement of the cut-andpasted cardboard pieces. For example, Keller’s “Dos Equis XX” BoxBot, an angry, devil-like creature, is the antithesis of his “Nilla Wafers” BoxBot, whose bright colors and spindly legs appear almost comical.
While some of us may be disenchanted about how un-futuristic the 21st century turned out to be, we can still make the most of it. And although Keller’s BoxBots may not serve you breakfast in bed, pluck your nose hairs, or clean up after your incontinent dog, at least they’re fun to look at—more than can be said about some douchebag speeding through the mall on a Segway.