Watch retired BMW robots draw athletes movements at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Industrial robots once used in a BMW car factory have been given a new lease of life as key elements in a new work of art inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic games in Tokyo. The largescale installation by the Londonbased design practice Jason Bruges Studio was unveiled today in Tokyos Ueno Park as part of the arts and culture festival Tokyo Tokyo Festival Special 13 (28 July5 September). The Constant Gardeners consists of four robot arms each weighing more than a tonne that have been repurposed to gently rake and draw in a bed of basalt and granite gravel. The installation was inspired by traditional Japanese Zen gardening and seen as a way to counter the perception of robots as threatening and inelegant, according to the Jason Bruges Studio, which added: By programming the robots to perform the role of Zen gardeners, we hope to challenge these notions by displaying the machines in a contemplative, graceful context. The patterns drawn by the robots are based on the movements made by athletes in Oly