Built in 1928 by biologist Makoto Nishimura, Gakutensoku was first exhibited in Kyoto as part of the formal celebration of the Showa Emperor’s ascension to the throne. The robot traveled to a number of expos and wowed onlookers with its mad calligraphy skills before going missing in Germany. After a long disappearance, Gakutensoku was located and later repatriated to Osaka.
The more technological environement is growing, the more human nature is looking for a nature, a sensible world to be in touch with roots. Fujitsu and Monacca developped a wooden pc, this tendence might become bigger like the zoomorph as well. It's just a question of feeling, a new flower power techno.
Sometimes it's good and funny to see a vision of the post-future. I hope you'll enjoy it. Our vision of the future could also look like a joke for the next generation. Have fun !
Recently, entering a community I had to answer questions file as always. The surprise was the last question: «R u human ?» This question was against the robots. The real question is « The war began ?»
This robot is maybe one of the most scary creature. I love it because of the shape and the noise completely out of soft design. It's like a nightmare. The interesting fact is the creators did not try to make it similar as a dog, no head, no tail, no stupid nickname. If you consider robot with out human point of view may be this one is vision of a possible future.
In 1951, Osamu Tezuka created Astro Boy. Few years ago I met Honda's chief engineer of robotic departement who explained me why they created Asimo at first. Mr Honda wanted a friendly robot like Astro Boy in the 70's. In a room there was the manga collection of Astro boy ( mighty Atom ). The engineers had to read it and copy the concept, all were car engineers and became robotic engineers because of the project. I believe many people like me became robot's fans because of it. The funny thing is when I asked the chief engineer if Asimo was an homage to Asimov, he asked me "Who is Asimov ?"
Of course, this reminds us Philip K. Dick Using recorded brainwave activity and eye movements during REM sleep to determine robot behaviors and head positions, "Sleep Waking" acts as a way to "play-back" dreams. Through this piece we hope to investigate one of the possible human-robot relationships. Fernando Orellana
A very important part of robotic for me is concerning the medical part, surgery especially. When I was making some research for Electrumcorpus, I had interview with differents surgeons. One was very interesting for me because I was developping tools for the robot he was working with on heart operations. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves cutting of a body. Before the robot, surgeons used to say " Great surgeon, great scare", now a small hole is enough, thank's to the robot and it's non ego. Human created the machine, the machine is repairing the human. Maybe it is a moment of real conversation between two types of machines in a way. The more we accept the fact of depending on robots, the more flesh will just be consider as a past structure. I believe we are very close to the step, not only repairing but definitively replacing human physical fonctions to achieve humanoid vision.
From the "L'Ève future" by Villiers de L'Isle Adam, robot is a projection of man's fantaisy, control the partner and become the master of a sexual slave. No feeling, no dialogue only childish desire, animated toys for adults. Robot as an object of desire is also the connection between flesh and machine, a new step to the posthuman like the vision of Jean michel Truong . If the artificial intelligence was the master and started to make human depending, love and sex not for the future of humanity but the begining of the robotic chaos. Thinking about social laws controling the relation between human and robot make me think a about loosing the control on a natural situation. Artificial sexuality means artificial life and artificial life does not need a weack stucture like human body. Welcome to the next step of evolution. If some of you want to try now, Honey dolls company make you dreams come true.
The web is a strange time machine, can be considered like a universal memory. Forgotten is a human power in a way when I see this kind of strange crossover. Words can give you a feeling even a nostalgic image of a forgotten past but a web can be like a pornographic image, raw with no seduction just the fact with out mystery. Sometimes it's better to leave the past in the pandora's box. A simple keyword can distroy a nice memory like when your brain is showing you a fake image of an old TV serie, just a feeeling of a perfect past.
Kate Moss Hologram - Alexander McQueen Fashion Show a good exemple of a possible future for virtual show, the power of image and the developpement of 3d. Sometimes technology and fashion can become a nice couple. I always believed in. The future is a mix between design and technology. The first step is may be fashion show and designers like Hussein Chalayan, my favorite one.
The photography changed the last ten years with the digital cameras. The media moved from paper to screen but the medium is still the same . From the past to the near future light is fixing on a sensitive plate. Nothing changed exept one thing, photography exist through the video technology and became a part of the video camera. If you have choice between an image and the mouvement. The answer is youtube and other website dedicated to short movies. A painting or a photography need to have a culture to look at, the mouvement is enough for most of the people because TV is the reference. If you look at the 19th century photographies creation was there. Today photography can only be saved by the graphic computering . The next generation will not have nostalgia for the photography. Video will become a part of instant memory, already some young people can not remember what they did 3 days before with out recording.
If robots are becoming a part of our life in a very near future. What will be the purpose, labor, entertainer and beyond mecanic shape is there a robotic life form ? Is humanoide shape a good solution or just a very short vision of the real posthuman world. I do not believe in this solution, the global robotisation is on the way. No more labor strike, no more pain for old worker's body. Robots will develop their own shape, far from human shape.
When I was working on Electrumcorpus concept, i was considering my vision as a preview of the next 10 years. It was in 2002, may be I was not so wrong.Contact lenses with circuits,University of Washington