La Princesse

Craft & Design Robotics
La Princesse

La-Princesse

This article first appeared in Make: Volume 41.
This article first appeared in Make: Volume 41.

How can I love something with eight eyes and a bloodless heart? I just donโ€™t think thereโ€™s a newspaper large enough to smash this beast. Not that I would, but spiders never made me feel very comfortable. They haunt every crack and corner in your house and live with some salesmanโ€™s promise to โ€œrid your home of all other bugsโ€ in exchange for the occasional fear of accidentally climbing into your slumbering bedtime mouth. Thatโ€™s not entirely factual, and neither is the fear factor from a 50-foot arachnid that is always within your field of view whenever it chooses to terrorize a city.

200,000 attendees (or victims?) of La Princesse witnessed five days of nigh-Lovecraftian horror back in 2008 during Liverpoolโ€™s Capital of Culture event and it has remained in my nightmares ever since. I can’t fathom an evening without seeing that mechanical metatarsus, or the sunken forlorn eyes of its diabolical builders, the fire-breathing operators from French production company La Machine.

The crowd was fanatically attracted by the musical pheromones that spewed from the machinesโ€™ spinnerets. When all was settled the freak nestled into its cocoon and the gasoline engines, compressors, and fireworks went silent and she was never seen again.
At least I want to believe that. Let me have that moment of rest.

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James Burke

James Burke is a designer for Make: and organizer of the Power Racing Series.

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