There is an industrial hydraulic machine in the Docklands of London that breathes in and out and has eyelids that flutter even when no one is watching. It took 18 months and more than a $1m to build, and according to Michael Orsino – senior vice-president of events group Cityneon – it is absolutely not a robot.
“We refer to them as creatures, even internally when we have our meetings,” Orsino says. “They truly do come alive so we try to stay away from calling them robots.” This blinking, breathing robot is a dinosaur – it stomps and roars in the finale of Jurassic World: The Exhibition, an immersive experience based on the film franchise. A “keepalive” system means the show’s dinosaurs move subtly even when no one’s about, “because we always want them to feel like they’re present”.
