Excerpt from:

The Race (2018)

Single Channel HD Video

Running Time: 7:54

The Race takes place in Mongolia, one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. The video follows a small robot attending a camel race in the county’s Gobi Desert. The robot exhibits striking similarities with the simplistic robots produced to function as camel racing jockeys in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. These robot jockeys were introduced as a solution to concerns about the exploitation of children used to jockey racing camels. This unanticipated relationship between Mongolia and these distant countries is a profound one. Like these nations, Mongolia has also faced issues with child exploitation within the world of racing. Children between the ages of 7 and 10 are often used to jockey racehorses during Naadam, the country's biggest festival. Like these Arab nations, Mongolia will soon be forced to develop a solution for this problem, because public pressure, similar to what occurred in the Arab World of racing, is started to mount for Mongolia as well. In this unexpected manner, this small robot’s spectator experience highlights a common struggle between power and morality.