Technocultural research into robotics
Edited by Chris Chesher and Justine Humphry
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Media on tumblr
I’m posting some images from Seoul ARSO2010 (advanced robotics social impacts) on my tumblr page: chrischesher.tumblr.com
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Seoul view
View from Hotel Victoria in Seoul. My first visit here.
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Following Robot
This clip shows a prototype robot from an early stage of the collaboration between Paul Gazzola and Paul Granjon at the Campbelltown Arts Centre. This simple robot could follow a line formed by a line of plastic tape stuck to the ground.
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Virtuosabots: all-singing, all-dancing robots
The HRP-4, ‘Diva-Bot’ robot singer, which premiered at the CEATEC Japan 2010 trade show in October 2010, is another in a series of virtuosabots. Virtuosabots deliver uncannily human performances, always mimicking a prized human talent: trumpet playing, violin playing or dancing to Bolero.
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Kismet and robotic expression
Kismet was an early robotic research project at MIT Media Lab that helped draw popular attention to the possibility of expressive communication between robots and people.
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Making robots real (with help from Latour)
Cultural robotics needs a theory to account for the ways technological problems, such as robotics, are constantly defined, redefined and distributed across society. Robotics is already embedded in a social history of technology, drawing on black-boxed elements from technological legacies that deal with the problems of propulsion and control — how to get things to…
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BigDog Robot, Black Dog Myth
All gangly limbs and uncanny irresistable force, Boston Dynamics’ BigDog is an image from science fiction thrown onto the YouTube screen. The DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) funded project has built a demo of a mechanical pack mule that can carry loads across environments where wheels fear to roll.
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Beers in the bathroom
Hanging in the upstairs men’s toilet is a poster that lays out a ‘Periodic Table of Beers’. This delicious combination of scientific iconography, postgraduate irreverence and well-researched information really suits the style of the ACFR.
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Optimising Mars Rovering
At the ACFR there are regular presentations from visitors, academics and students. The first I saw was from Swiss engineer Franziska Ullrich, who presented work she had done to design an optimal Mars Rover that could take on the hostile, rocky, alien environment of an exhibit at the Powerhouse Museum.