Book and Exhibition
MAK – Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst / Gegenwartskunst
„Hello, Robot. Design between Human and Machine“ puts a focus on the current robotics boom. With numerous exhibits from a wide range of disciplines, the exhibition investigates the areas where we encounter robots both now and in the near future: in industry, the military and daily life; in children’s rooms and retirement homes; in our bodies and in the cloud; in shopping malls and sex; in computer games and of course in film and literature. „Hello, Robot.“ looks at how we respond to the fact that our environment is becoming ever smarter and more autonomous. The show illuminates our – often ambivalent – relationship to new technologies and probes the opportunities and challenges we face in this connection as individuals and as a society. Furthermore, it examines the ethical and political questions raised by today’s technological advances in robotics, and also confronts us with the contradictions that frequently reside in the answers to these questions. Design plays a central role in this complex dynamic. It has consistently acted as an intermediary force between human and machine as well as between the various disciplines. In the emotionally charged discourse on robotics, too, it serves to bridge seemingly irreconcilable contradictions.