i am having difficulties to describe what we have here… this is basically a robot.
behind that robot there is a ‘schlauchwehranlage im automatikbetrieb‘ which apparently translates quite directly as ‘inflatable rubber dam in automatic mode’ and i guess that sounds similarly ridiculous as it does in german. only for the uninitiated of course, no offense to the hydrologists and dam builders among the readers!
unfortunately the inflatable rubber dam was not inflated at the time of this shot so – coming back to the beginning – what we see here is the grating with which the rubber is shielded from debris. The thingies hanging above these gratings are giant robot hands that go down the gratings and get all the stuff that gets caught by these and put it into expectant containers on the right. circle of life! (not really…)
i found that whole installation quite impressive. probably even more so because it’s in the middle of berlin in the little river that gave name to the pankow district – the river panke.
.documenting.the.obvious 
Great title! I’ve never heard of these rubber dams…pretty cool!
i hadn’t heard about this before digging deeper into it after taking the shot, either. and i also think it’s pretty cool stuff and a great invention. one more reason for sharing :)
The first reason of course was the photograph which is excellent but I failed to mention it in my comment. Thanks for sharing both!
no worries! thanks a lot!
Very nice!
thanks a lot, Robert. much appreciated.