Depicted robot:
“PigeonBot” by Stanford University
The work is based on the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus, the greatest inventor and engineer of his time, built wings for himself and his son to escape imprisonment, warning Icarus not to fly too high or too low. But Icarus ignored this advice, flew too close to the sun, and fell to his death. This story becomes a fitting allegory for the technological ambitions of our own age. The depicted robot is “PigeonBot,” a drone designed by Stanford University with real feathered wings that imitate the flight behavior of a pigeon.