the future is coming

[threeplusfire]

Asimo, a 1.2-meter (4-foot) tall robot designed by Honda, brings flowers to the bust of Czech author and playwrighter Karel Capek in the hall of the National Museum in Prague, Friday, Aug. 22, 2003. Asimo was brought to Prague by visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to pay tribute to Capek, who invented the word 'robot' in his 1921 play 'R.U.R.' (Rossum's Universal Robots). (AP Photo/CTK, Michal Dolezal)

Honda's ASIMO project is to my knowledge the most advanced humanoid robot project in the works. Apparently, the robot is more entertaining than the Czech Prime Minister.

There's something really strange and moving in the image of the robot bringing flowers to Capek.

Comments

[n-o-m-i-c.livejournal.com]

Wow.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

It's just sort of strange, isn't it?

[n-o-m-i-c.livejournal.com]

Definitely. It evoked a complex reaction in me, at first. I was almost offended, but then I read whom it was. It made a perfect, eerie sense after that. Sort of a circle of completion. A very kind gesture, despite all the marketing gimmickry it may have been hatched as.

[jonqui.livejournal.com]

Fuckin' cool.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's a gorgeous, evocative, moving photo. It's very evocative of a lot of things, 2001: A Space Odyssey included. Fantastic image. I mean, one of the great ones of the century to be, I think.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can definitely see that being part of the future equivalent of a power point presentation on the history of the robot.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Just -- I can see the movement and hear the music in the photo. It's pretty intense cold war era mythology imagry. I'm sort of obsessed really.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

There's something really strange and moving in the image of the robot bringing flowers to Capek.

It's also kinda creepy, considering what the play was about.

Exactly so

[curmudgn]

I can remember altogether too well how shocked and depressed I was when I first read R.U.R. (I was probably fourteen or so, which would make it more than thirty years ago.) Despite its ostensibly happy ending, the play has a very dystopian vision of the world.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Definitely.