From Ancient Greece onwards, humans have been swept up in a race to
replicate and rebuild themselves. We design automatons that mimic
human functions or improve on them, born from a desire to take
evolution into our own hands, or even play God. In fact, every form
of cultural expression has at some point investigated the rich and
stimulating field of robotics, reaching different conclusions and
outcomes every time. Robots have infiltrated our social
consciousness. They are everywhere, from Leonardo da Vinci's
drummer robot to the futurist man-machine; from Frankenstein to the
works of Isaac Asimov and Philip Dick, inventor of the 'replicant';
from Edward Gordon Craig's theory of the actor as a super-puppet to
Daft Punk and Kraftwerk, the krautrock band who used replica
mannequins of themselves at the end of their concert. It doesn't
end there, either. Robots feature heavily in cinema (Fritz Lang's
Metropolis, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and George Lucas's Star
Wars saga, to name a few). They star in innumerable comic strips
and cartoons (from Astro Boy to Marvel comics and Japanese manga).
Fields like design, architecture and fashion, where creativity
encounters industry, turned the robot into a commodity rather than
a character. 'Robot' became a style in itself: kitsch and chic, fun
and futuristic. Nowadays, when laptops, tablets and smartphones,
the robots of the contemporary age, are in every house, car and
pocket, the tin-and-steel robots of yesteryear have acquired an
irresistibly vintage flavour, which makes them all the more
desirable. Robot: A Visual Atlas from Ancient Greece to Artificial
Intelligence appreciates this rich variety. Through tracking the
conceptual development of the robot through western cultural
history, it uncovers the roots of our fascination with artificial
humanity.
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