Robot fictions: entertainment cultures and engineering research entanglements

Yesterday in a “secret robot house” in Hatfield, in the suburbs of London, I gave a quick talk about how popular robot fictions influence the design process. The speech was about the propagation of the robot myth in engineering spheres and the influence of certain topics (robot idioms, shapes, behavior and automation)… and how they appear as inevitable tropes in technological research. I tried to uncover what is hidden behind this phenomenon and looked at the complex interactions between entertainment cultures (Science-Fiction mostly) and scientific research.

I’ve uploaded the slides on Slideshare:

Thanks Alex for the invitation!