Most robots don’t look human — not yet, at least.
The industrial machines that actually work in factories, building cars and welding bolts, are appropriately efficient-looking.
But when it comes to the type of robots we enjoy looking at, we gravitate toward ones that provide a cracked-mirror version of ourselves: Samurai sword-wielding mechs from Japanese pop culture or the T-800 from the “Terminator” movies, a skeletal robot designed with human teeth.
A new exhibit revels in our fascination with the fictional machines. “Robots: A Designer’s Collection of Miniature Mechanical Marvels,” opened a week ago at the Science Fiction Museum of Experience Music Project in Seattle. It will be on display through Oct. 26.
The exhibit can be divided into two sections. The first is housed in about an 500-square-foot room with blown-up details of toy robots on the walls. A case in the center of the room holds 135 tiny toys, set on four shelves. They represent almost the entire collection of robots owned by prominent New York City graphic designer Tom Geismar.
Geismar, who created logos for Mobil Oil and PBS, started buying the toys in the 1960s. He was drawn to the tiny creations for aesthetic reasons.
“He’s not a huge sci-fi fan,” Margie Maynard, director of education at EMP/SFM, said. “His primary motivation for collecting them was he liked the look of them.”
Those robots, all removed from their original packaging, fall into two categories: The chunky and innocent looking robots of the 1950s and 1960s, and the sleeker, brightly-colored robots that “Transformers” helped popularize in the 1980s.
The collection brings to mind two moods: wonder for children and nostalgia for adults who remember shows such as “Ultraman.” With a young audience in mind, museum curators set two of the four shelves about three feet off the ground, an ideal height for a child’s gaze.
Outside the room, in a second section, the museum has reorganized elements of its own collection, putting together long-displayed items. Those include an original T-800 from the “Terminator” movies, an original NS-5 from the Will Smith movie “I, Robot” and a reproduction of R2-D2.
Additionally, a quote has been added to one wall, framing the collections. The lines were taken from Terry Pratchett’s “The Dark Side of the Sun.” They read:
“I wonder what makes us build inefficiently-shaped human robots instead of nice streamlined machines.”
“Pride, sir,” said the robot.
Granted, that’s not entirely true. Most actual robots don’t look like humans. Still, it’s hard not to feel a twinge of pride at the artistry displayed by the museum’s latest exhibit.
Reporter Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455 or e-mail arathbun@heraldnet.com
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