Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon at San Jose Museum of Art

by Scott Beale on May 12, 2008 · 2 comments

Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon

“Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon” is an exhibition at San Jose Museum of Art running through October 19th that features robot themed art from more than 20 artists.

Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon examines the development of robot iconography in fine art over the past 50 years. In 1920, the term robot was coined from a Czech word robota, which means tedious labor. Since then, the image and the idea of a robot have evolved remarkably from an awkward, mechanical creature to a sophisticated android with artificial intelligence and the potential for human-like consciousness. As robotic technology catches up with the wild imagination of science fiction novels, movies, and animation, dreams and fears anticipated in these stories may also become reality. Artists included in the exhibition have responded to the technological innovation with optimism, pessimism, and humor, presenting work that ultimately explores our ambivalent attitudes towards robots.

Here’s my good friend JoAnne Northrup, senior curator of the San Jose Museum of Art, giving an introduction to the Robots exhibition.

This Thursday, May 15th robotics researcher Daniel Wilson will be giving a talk as part of the Creative Minds Speaker Series about his book “How to Survive a Robot Uprising”. Tickets for the event are available online.

painting: “What We Ought Not, We Do” (2006) by Eric Joyner

Here Are A Few Related Posts You Might Enjoy:

Tech Connect: Robots at San Jose Museum of Art

Todd Schorr Surreal Night At The San Jose Museum of Art

Photos: Todd Schorr American Surreal Exhibition at San Jose Museum of Art

Evolution of Technology, From Dinosaur Robots to Modern Androids

Todd Schorr, American Surreal Exhibition at San Jose Museum of Art & New Book by Last Gasp

filed under Art, Robots

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

1 Bonnie May 12, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Crap! they took the video down! ;-(

Reply

Leave a Comment

You can use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Moderation: All comments are manually approved, so if your comment is approved it may take a while for your comment to appear on this blog post.

Irrelevant, obnoxious, trolling, abusive and spam comments will not be approved. Let's keep things civil and on topic. Basically what we are saying, if your comment does not add to the conversation, it will not be approved.

Real Name & Website: For the most part do not post anonymous comments. Please list your real name and provide a link to your website, blog, Twitter account, etc. You know who we are, so we ask the same of you.

Corrections: If you want to point out a typo or correction, please email us instead. Typo or correction comments will not be approved since they are pretty much useless once they are corrected and then only tend to confuse things.

Gravatars: If you would like a Gravatar to show up with your comment? Just sign-up for an account and any comment with your email address will display your Gravatar.

Previous post: Power Tool Drag Races 2008

Next post: Million Pirate March at Bay To Breakers