Do as you're told! Robots are replacing humans to do our repetitive tasks. Reliable and obedient, robots can perform their tasks meticulously over and over again. But what happens once this flawless worker starts to slack off? What if it loses interest in its daily routine, or simply drifts away into a daydream? These thoughts became the inspiration behind Out of Order – an innovative LED light fixture that visualizes the transition from a repetitive robotic order to a disordered structure created out of free will. The ultra lightweight cylindrical construction consists solely of wound industrial yarn, reinforced with resin, that resembles a three-dimensional play of lines suspended in space. At first glance the weave appears to be perfectly ordered, but a closer look reveals that the pattern gradually transitions from regular to irregular. The warped lines are caused by a specially developed ‘randomizing’ algorithm that instructs the fibers to deviate from their course. The seeming randomness of these interwoven patterns suggests that the robot has developed a mind of its own. As the distortions in the linework are never the same, this makes each and every lamp truly unique. Out Of Order is the result of a collaboration between Amsterdam-based interdisciplinary design studio BCXSY and Rotterdam-based design studio Atelier Robotiq.

What happens when a robotic arm goes crazy on the job? That’s the idea behind Out of Order, a hanging LED lamp designed by Dutch studio BCXSY and Atelier Robotiq, a Rotterdam-based collective that uses industrial robotics to make lighting fixtures and furniture. Out of Order is meant to evoke the product of a computer mind gone haywire.

Robots, the designers say, are usually perceived as “flawless workers.” Obviously, robots are neither flawless nor workers–they’re machines that are programmed to carry out tasks. But if we’re going to anthropomorphize machines, we can also imagine that they’ll get eventually get tired of following our commands. “But what would happen once the flawless worker becomes less impeccable?” BCXSY founders Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto tell Dezeen. “What if it would grow tired of its daily routine, or becomes absent-minded while daydreaming?”

Maybe the repetition would grow maddening–enough so that the machine would revolt, and start doing whatever it wanted.