Undoubtedly, one of the biggest desires of humanity that has not given up for centuries is the idea of creating an artificial fellow creature. This passion, carried from the first mechanical devices in Ancient Greece to the robots produced with today’s high technology, has become one of the biggest dreams of human history. The interesting part is that even while they have some utopian ideas that these mechanical devices will capture the humanity, humans make progress without hesitation.
This long-lasting relationship of humans and robots was the guest of an exhibition at Museo delle Culture; “Robot, The Human Project” is based on relationship between humanity and robots. The results achieved so far, the extraordinary technological developments and the frontiers of contemporary robots are main issues of the exhibition. This exhibition can be considered as an anthropological and artistic work that reveals how to interaction between human beings and robots is becoming more and more real. Starting present with the ancestors of robots, the exhibition continues with modern robotics applied to the modern medicine. Visitors also will be able to interact with “Cobots”, robots able to recognize and transmit the emotions. Thanks to exhibition, the technological progress in this field can be examined in a wide chronological framework in an ethical and social and cultural context.
In the exhibition, the relationship between human beings and robots is retraced from a wide scope, as we have mentioned above. One of the contributors of the exhibition is from Haute-Horology world: Jaquet-Droz. With around 300-years old history, Jaquet Droz had continued the desire of humanity to produce robots when it set out to produce the first automatons that imitated human being movements 250 years ago. “The Author, The Draughtsman, and Musician” automatons were introduced at La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1774 were perhaps a sign from that time that these mechanical devices would evolve into human-shaped robots.
Designed by Pierre Jaquet-Droz, Henri-Louis Jaquet and Jean Frédéric, these automatons were an advertisement product aimed to improve the sales of watch among the nobility of Europe in the 18th century. These three figures are still on displayed in the Art and History Museum of Neuchâtel.
Jaquet Droz’s history of automates had started with these figures, and the brand joins to the exhibition with its four different robots. These automates, from 1780 to 2018, are giving glimpse into the history of both Jaquet Droz and robots from the haute horology world. If you want to see the relationship between humanity and these mechanical devices from an artistic point of view on the journey to the ancestors of robots, whose frontiers we cannot predict today, the exhibition can be seen at the Museo delle Culture until August 1st.
Automates of Jaquet Droz in the Exhibition
an animated birdcage (1780) a singing bird pocket watch (1785)
a singing bird (1790) The Poet (2018)
