SXSW: The Preservation Robot

On Saturday, March 9th The Preservation Robot was unveiled at South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas by photographic artist Jimmy Nelson. The Preservation Robot is the first autonomous technology ever created to address the homogenisation of human culture, due to the ever-increasing spread of Western culture on the internet.
Agency: J. Walter Thompson, Amsterdam
The robot, which was activated live on stage at SXSW, continuously places a myriad of images of indigenous culture into the open spaces on the Internet, to help make it more culturally diverse. The Preservation Robot uses technology – one of the very things that threatens cultural diversity – against itself to shine a light on indigenous culture. This is photographic artist Jimmy Nelson’s answer to homogenisation. Technology – and specifically the internet – is allowing Western culture to saturate the world. This is threatening our global cultural diversity. Photographic artist Jimmy Nelson has spent the last 30 years travelling to the farthest corners of the world to visit and photograph some of the last indigenous cultures still alive. His work has subsequently been used to garner support and help restore a sense of pride around indigenous ways of life. Nelson believes that exposing the world to the richness and range of indigenous peoples is the way to safeguard not only their traditions and ways of life, but also to bolster one of humanity’s greatest values: cultural diversity. Nelson has witnessed the sharp decline in cultural diversity in the last decades, and realised that he needed a far-reaching approach to tell people about this global issue. The Preservation Robot is his effort to reverse this decline. By turning the internet against itself. Literally.