Technological Fantasies of Nao - Remarks about Alterity Relations
Abstract
In this contribution we investigate how the concept of ‘technological fantasies’ can be utilized to further develop the understanding of human-robot relation as an ‘alterity relation’. Postphenomenology emphasizes how the humanoid robot is constituted as a ‘quasi-other’ in the interaction with humans. The basis of the article is an experiment we conducted at the Medical Museion in Copenhagen, involving the humanoid robot Nao as a tour guide. Through interviews with the participants of the robot guided tour, we discuss how technological fantasies of the robot play an active part in the constitution of the alterity relation and thus the experience of the robot as a quasi-other.
Keywords
Humanoid robots, technological fantasies, sociotechnical imaginaries, postphenomenology, psychoanalysis, critical design
Author Biography
Stina Hasse Jørgensen
Stina Hasse Jørgensen is a PhD student at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, where she is researching our relationships with machines, specifically in relation to robots. Currently Stina's research concerns the aesthetics of social robots in relation to the conditions of late capitalism. Together with Oliver Alexander Tafdrup from Aarhus University she is conducting experiments with the humanoid robot NAO in a museum context. Stina has published articles on art, technology and sound in magazines and journals such as Seismograf, Body, Space & Technology Journal and Cultural Analysis, and has given papers at conferences such as Aesthetics, Ethics and Biopolitics of the Posthuman, TERRÆN 2015, Historizing the Avant-garde, Global Lives Project - UC Berkeley, Re-New IMAC, and NORDIK2012.
Oliver Tafdrup
Oliver Tafdrup is a PhD fellow at the Department of Education at Aarhus University, Denmark. His thesis deals with the philosophy of sociotechnical imaginaries. Other research areas include the use of technology in education and the phenomenology of imagination.