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An Artist Imagines Santa And His Robot Reindeer

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Kenny Irwin's Christmas installation, Robolights, in Palm Springs, Calif., gets about 20,000 visitors annually. (Clifford Horn/Flickr)
Kenny Irwin's Christmas installation, RoboLights, in Palm Springs, Calif., gets about 20,000 visitors annually. (Clifford Horn/Flickr)

Kenny Irwin has been making monumental sculptures and displays for decades, but the annual highlight of his work is "RoboLights," his giant Christmas display which includes Santa, reindeer, robots and aliens.

"RoboLights" covers about four acres in Palm Springs, California, and gets about 20,000 visitors annually.

Irwin has an installation at the American Visionary art Museum in Baltimore called “Have Yourself a Happy Little Robotmas."

Some of the features of RoboLight include extra-terrestrial Santa riding a rocket ship sleigh, and Robo-deer.

"Robo-deer are the robot versions of regular live deer, except they are much more advanced," Irwin told Here & Now’s  Jeremy Hobson. "They're jet-rocket propelled, so they can blast off through the air much faster than a regular deer can fly through the air."

When asked why he created RoboLight, Irwin said, "From the earliest of ages, I wanted to do the most positive, ambitious thing I could to counteract some any of the negative people were doing in the world, and that was to create something that would spread immense happiness and creativity and imagination."

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This segment aired on December 24, 2013.

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