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This article was originally published in Domus 651 / June 1984
A renewed technological myth: robot history,
fantasy and reality in an exhibition at the American
Craft Museum of New York
The robots have just been born, and now — after their emergence
from a period of adolescence in
fat-research laboratories — they have
made their triumphal entry into our
daily lives.
And yet, at the technological apex
of the new industrial revolution,
these automaton have already
become museum pieces,
archaeological remains of a future
that seems already past. This, at
least, is the impression of the
visitor to "The Robot Exhibit" at
the American Craft Museum, New
York, from January to May of this
year: a historical review of robots,
cyborgs, automatons and androids.
It may seem strange that a
technology of such recent date and
one which, in the opinion of all, has
such a great and wonderful future
ahead of it should be celebrated in
museums, of all places, as though it
were an aspect of mature culture.
In reality, however, the robot myth
is extremely ancient and deeply rooted in our imaginations.
The army of robots
In 1984, a historical review of robots, cyborgs, automatons and androids invaded New York's American Craft Museum, exploring an ancient myth deeply rooted in our imagination.
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- Carlo Arcari
- 20 October 2012
- New York
It is a myth that has always drawn
sustenance from terror and
fascination, on irresistible
attraction and fear (Frankenstein
and Golem being the two classic
examples of this). Clearly we are
dealing here with feeling that
originated long before
microelectronics allowed robots to
actually step out of science fiction
to become part of ordinary life as
produced machines.
The New York exhibition uses 160
objects to tell the story of this long
conflict of feelings. Here we find
toys, sculptures, useless
mechanisms, works of art,
industrial robots, cinema robots,
robots for assembling motor cars.
The starting point of the exhibition
is a little wooden dog, the work of
some unknown craftsman in the
Egypt of the Pharaohs, and the last
exhibit is the latest "intelligent"
created by Unimation for
industry.
A comparison between robots of the past and the mecatronics workers of the present shows the great difference between them, despite their common origin in the same myth. The forms of all the fantasy-based useless robots right up to the recent past reveal all the tensions involved in theilbot creators' attempts to overcome insufficient technology. In contrast, the most sophisticated modern robots, though capable of the most amazing performance (e.g. the manipulation of artificial satellites in orbit), look to us like banal mechanisms, with little of the sensationa! about them at all.
Their forms and designs don't mean much to us: everything is "flattened" by the need of the productive functionality for which they were created
Their forms and designs don't mean much to us: everything is "flattened" by the need of the productive functionality for which they were created. Faithful servants, unable to rebel or to surprise, totally without fascination. It's a strange exhibition at the Craft Museum. To some extent it celebrates an updated technological myth; for the rest, it show us the physical evidence of a utopian mentality that is age-old. Carlo Arcari