Janitor Robot Discarded $50M Art Installation

Artist Zackariah “Z” Porter created his “Discarded” installation out of objects.. well… discarded by museum visitors, including brochures, gift-shop receipts, and items from the lost and found. 

A team of half a dozen janitorial robots cleans the museum every night, named “Snuffys” by the director’s daughter. The bot’s machine-learning algorithm detects trash, spills, and stains and determines the appropriate action for clearing them up. “He looks like a large dog with tools tucked inside his body...” one tour guide said. “He fits in here. If I told you he was a living sculpture or autonomous performance piece, you’d probably believe me.” 

Snuffy’s cleaner algorithm was accidentally reset to factory settings during the annual maintenance. The algorithm learned to recognize different forms of art through a rigorous VR training program created specifically for museums. Without this ability, Snuffy became a danger to the art. Museum staff began to suspect something was amiss when he tried to remove the stains from a stained glass panel. Then they arrived one morning to find Z’s entire installation in the dumpster. Snuffy’s algorithm labeled every bit of the artwork “trash.” 

Z’s “Lost and Found” installations, created from things most people throw away, took the art world by storm a few years ago. "We're consumers, not creators,” Z said at his first gallery opening. “This is the legacy we leave the next generation -- our trash. Piles and piles of it. I turn trash into a beautiful object worth contemplation." 

The interest in the upcoming auction of Z's works plummeted overnight. The auction house is postponing it “until further notice”. "Z used to be the darling of all the best galleries. Now even a robot can tell his work is garbage," one critic wrote. 

Z hasn’t given up. “That robot inspired me. I took a pile of trash and called it treasure. Then Snuffy took my art and just threw it away again. Is art ultimately disposable in our capitalist society?” 

Z hopes to design a performance piece around Snuffy. “If I show him the Mona Lisa, he won’t throw it out. But what about a scrambled  postcard of the Mona Lisa? What if I tear it up? I want to know where the line is? It will be a beautiful human robot collaboration…”