Robots: The 500-year Quest to Make Machines Human

Abstract

In 2017 the Science Museum in London opened a temporary exhibition on robotics that featured a unique collection of more than a hundred objects focusing on humanoid robots from the sixteenth century to the present day. This exhibition, developed by the Science Museum’s curator of mechanical engineering, Ben Russell, and his team, ran from 8 February to 3 September 2017 and will be traveling internationally after its closure in London. It is divided into five sections (“Marvel,” “Obey,” “Dream,” “Build,” and “Imagine”), which are presented in a chronological sequence in five separate rooms. The exhibition team unfolds the narrative of the five sections using five different historical periods and locations. The designer’s concept corresponds to this order of topics by implementing a consecutive itinerary. In accord with the exhibition’s title, it constructs a narrative about mankind’s quest for humanlike machines. The curators start in the sixteenth century, when European thinkers increasingly thought of humans and indeed the universe itself as machinelike. They follow it with an exploration of the Industrial Revolution and the complex systems of machinery within which humans became embedded. They explore the continuing fascination with the creation of humanlike machines in the present day and finish the narrative with questions about how people can live together with this kind of robot.