Unit III

Entertainment robots

Exercise 1

Read and translate the text.

An entertainment robot¹ is, as the name indicates, a robot that is not made for utilitarian use, as in production or domestic services, but for the sole subjective pleasure of the human it serves, usually the owner or his housemates, guests or clients. Robotics technologies are applied in many areas of culture and entertainment.

Expensive robotics are applied to the creation of narrative environments in commercial venues where servo motors, pneumatics and hydraulic actuators are used to create movement with often preprogrammed responsive behaviors such as in Disneyland's haunted house.

Entertainment robots can also be seen in the context of media arts² where artist have been employing advanced technologies to create environments and artistic expression also utilizing the actuators and sensor to allow their robots to react and change in relation to viewers.

Relatively cheap, mass-produced entertainment robots are used as mechanical, sometimes interactive, toys which perform various tasks and tricks on command. The first commercial hit was, not surprisingly, modelled on the most popular pet: the canine. While primitive robot toy models only execute standardized pre-programmed routines, advancing technology allows for interaction with the user, thus somewhat resembling a live playmate, but which has no feelings and always remains inferior to a pet.

In fact manufacturers even found it pays³ to produce a toy that is essentially designed to be nurtured, rather like an egg, as proven by the success of the Japanese Tamagotchi.

Entertainment robots can take the form of interactive marketing tools at trade shows where promotional robots move about a trade show floor providing tongue- in- cheek⁴ interaction with attendees about products, ad services in order to bring to particular companies trade show booth.

As usual in the entertainment industry, capital and creativity are invested to try and top anything the private person can afford. Thus expensive robots are made for use as:

• marketing tool - showed off by the manufacturers in order to promote their products and technology

• prop - inanimate performer or even artificial actor in show, TV and movie production

In 1956, Nicolas Schöffer created Cysp 1 (SpatiodynamiqueCybernétique), a robot and dancer working together to create an abstract sculpture and choreography with concrete music by Pierre Henry. These works could react to color, sound and light.

Survival Research Laboratories, in San Francisco, California, create large destructive robotic performances to roast contemporary culture and express their distaste for the military-industrial complex.

Emergent Systems is creating large-scale interactive art environments where robots are able to respond to humans and each other.

Intel Museum hosts the interactive robot, ARTI, which is short for "artificial intelligence". This robot is considered to be a work of fine art and is capable of recognizing faces, understands speech and even teaches the museum guests about the history of the museum and its founders.

Notes to the text:

¹Anarrativeenvironment(повествовательнаясреда) is a space, whether physical or virtual, in which stories can unfold. A virtual narrative environment might be the narrative framework in which game play can proceed. A physical narrative environment might be an exhibition area within a museum, or a foyer of a retail space, or the public spaces around a building - anywhere in short where stories can be told in space.

²media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new mediatechnologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computerrobotics, and art as biotechnology. Media Art often involves interaction between artist and observer or between observers and the artwork, which responds to them. Yet, as several theorists and curators have noted, such forms of interaction, social exchange, participation, and transformation do not distinguish new media art but rather serve as a common ground that has parallels in other strands of contemporary art practice.

³it pays – it is profitable

⁴tongue-in-cheek - (idiomatic) not intended seriously; humorous