RoBoHoN showed off its dancing skills in Austria! The RoBoHoN exhibit at the Ars Electronica Festival
September 23, 2016
RoBoHoN was put on display at the international media arts festival “Ars Electronica Festival”, held for five days from September 8, 2016, in Linz, Austria. We received many photographs of the event that we would like to show you!
Ars Electronica is the world’s top media arts organization, and has its headquarters in Linz, Austria. This organization is a base for the media arts category, with the international competition “Prix Ars Electronica”, the media arts research facility that also acts as R&D “Ars Electronica Futurelab”, and the “Ars Electronica Center”, an art museum of the future that features knowledge and technology.
The “Ars Electronica Festival” is held every September at various venues within the city of Linz, featuring media arts exhibitions and performance events. The time difference between Linz and Japan was seven hours due to daylight savings, and seeing these photographs sent over from Linz was very exciting!
Preparation
The RoBoHoN exhibit was situated at the former Austria post office distribution center. Some exhibition venues at the “Ars Electronica Festival” feature public spaces such as this. It is thought that having art and culture blend into public spaces will allow viewers to enjoy it more casually, and result in educational benefits.
The exhibition booth.
Five RoBoHoNs were programmed with a special performance for the exhibition at this time.
Tomotaka Takahashi, the co-creator of RoBoHoN also made some checks.
Prototypes and documents from the RoBoHoN development were also put on display along with the performance.
RoBoHoN was born from these sketches.
The initial prototype was slightly rounder than the final product.
The finished RoBoHoN booth.
The day of the festival
The booth received its very own introductory board. The RoBoHoN catch phrase is “Kokoro, ugoku denwa”, or “Heart moving phone” in English.
Look at the many people gathered at the booth!
RoBoHoN robots also tried their best to entertain visitors with their performances such as songs synchronized with motion pictures.
Visitors were enthralled with the performances of the five RoBoHoN robots.
Another cutie has appeared! Is he going to dance with RoBoHoN?
Looks like RoBoHoN is also viewing the exhibition!
The ceremony
The ceremony featured speeches such as that from the Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern and Linz Mayor Klaus Luger, along with an awards ceremony. We received a photograph of the event, but isn’t there something in the far right of the photo…?
….It’s RoBoHoN!
The robots were featured on the large screen as well!
It seems artistic director Gerfried Stocker included a special presentation introducing RoBoHoN and featuring a projector demonstration. We were ecstatic to see RoBoHoN getting recognized at an international level like this!
The talk event by Tomotaka Takahashi
The festival also featured a talk event by Tomotaka Takahashi.
The visitors had many questions to ask. It appears the RoBoHoN charm knows no borders!
This event allowed RoBoHoN to go international and be seen by individuals from various cultures. We believe that RoBoHoN has the potential to become a special entity that could change future society, if we can transcend its present limitations as a phone and expand it towards art and philosophy. RoBoHoN might have been a little nervous presenting itself on a grand stage in a different environment and language for this event, don’t you think?
Challenges toward the world’s first mobile robot phone “RoBoHoN”
