Pane Writer
The Announcement Robot

1999

With the "Pane Writer", the Ars Electronica Center announces current events and presentations in a highly innovative way.

The unique plotter device was developed to write announcements of upcoming events of the Ars Electronica Center directly on the plate glass windows on the front of the building.

One robot, which is controlled by a graphics program and equipped with three color pens, precisely positions the graphics and text on the glass panes. The announcements are later removed by a robot equipped with an eraser. The plotter achieves a speed of 40 centimeters per second, and can cover a total of two square meters of glass.