It’s perhaps a little too close to Arse Elektronika to post this particular and literally juicy item¹, but here’s a robotic hand made out of cucumbers:

¹ You folks have filthy minds which is why we love you

monochrom, the folks that brought you the academically necessary cocktail robot conference Roboexotica, presents another conference that goes where other academicians fear to tread:

ARSE ELEKTRONIKA 2008 “Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep?”
September 25-28, 2008, San Francisco, USA

A conference dealing with sex, technology and science fiction. Featuring the Prixxx Arse Elektronika 2008 Awards Ceremony (an unobjectionable award for sex machines, orgasmotrons and teledildonics), the presentation of the Arse Elektronika Anthology “pr0nnovation?” (about pornography and technological innovation), a curated erotic reading about sex in SF/speculative/alt-reality fiction and — of course — a three day conference about critical perspectives on sexuality and pornography in science and social fiction (with keynote speeches by Rudy Rucker and Constance Penley).

Registration:

http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/bookings.html

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Taking up where the successful conference in autumn 2007 left off, this year’s Arse Elektronika stands under the motto “future” — and the ways in which the present sees itself reflected in it. Maintaining a broadened perspective on technical development and technology while also putting special emphasis on its social implementation, this year’s conference focuses on Science and Social Fiction. The genre of the “fantastic” is especially well suited to the investigation of the touchy area of sexuality and pornography: actual and assumed developments are frequently depicted positively and approvingly, but just as often with dystopian admonishment. Here the classic, and continuingly valid, themes of modernism represent a clear link between the two aspects: questions of science, research and technologization are of interest, as is the complex surrounding urbanism, artificiality and control (or the loss of control). Depictions of the future, irregardless of the form they ta! ke, always address the present as well. Imaginations of the fantastic and the nightmarish give rise to a thematic overlapping of the exotic, the alienating and, of course, the pornographic/sexual as well.

CELLspace
2050 Bryant Street, San Francisco / September 26-28 / 1pm – 8pm, doors open at 12pm)

I am posting this late, because I am a Bad Panelist, but I am speaking on a panel Saturday night that treats on The Erotic Of The Machine. I am in the esteemed company of 23N! (zeni), Benjamin Cowden, Thomas Roche, David Dempsey, Violet Blue, Daniel Fabry, with our lovely host, Johannes Grenzfurthner
Stop by!

A nice thing about having an arm camera is that you can point it at yourself:

Robots. On Mars. And it twitters, too.

This is not good.

Now the robots are blogging themselves. In particular, it’s that wacky yellow Wakamaru who’s to blame. Yep, she/he/it/whatever’s even on Facebook.

Hey Waka, be nice to us useless humans when you and your yellow plastic buddies take over, ‘K?

. . .From the adorable Grant Imahara:

Yeah, do like Grant did and get yerself one-a them sexy stickers over in the sidebar there. Then you can say you were one of the cool kids way back when.

[Thanks Grant!]

I wrote a wee piece on io9. It’s an interview with Mythbuster Grant Imahara, an interesting lunch date and all around neat guy.

Check it out over there, then come over here for some upcoming awesomeness about Giant Killer Robots.

io9.com interview with Grant Imahara

The Artbots 2008 Robot Talent Show is this weekend, in Dublin, Ireland (whoo international art stars!).

The show features 15 works by 16 artists from 9 countries, as well as performances, workshops, lectures, and an awards ceremony. Participating works were selected from an international open call for “robotic art and art-making robots”, and represent a broad and inclusive cross-section of the tremendous range of creative art and robotics activity.

The ArtBots 2008 Dublin participants are: Paula Matthusen (USA), Leo Peschta (Austria), Koichiro Mori (Japan), Matt Denton (UK), Yuliya Lanina (Russia/USA), Che-Wei Wang & Kristin O’Friel (Japan/USA), Matthew Gardiner (Australia), Ralf Baecker (Germany), Byeong Sam Jeon (Korea/USA), Peter Redmond (Ireland), Allison Kudla (USA), Jack Pavlik (USA), Joan Healy (Ireland), Christopher Kaczmarek (USA), and Riley Harmon (USA).

Sound artist Ray Lee (UK) will celebrate the opening of the show on Friday with two presentations of “Forcefield”, a kinetic sound machine performance. Metal fabricator/artisan Phillip Isohe (Kenya) has created this year’s Robots’ Choice Award, and designer Eliza Gauger (USA) created the 2008 ArtBots t-shirt design. During the show members of the EU funded Living with Robots and Interactive Companions project will lead discussions with the artists and audience members.

Douglas Repetto, one of the curators, is an old SB pal, so when he is rich and famous we say we knew him when. We will also be able to wave at him from the police barricades when he gets out of the limo for those red carpeted events and he may even *glance our way* !

The show looks completely awesome with some really exceptional pieces and interesting-sounding panels (for example, “Are we living in a Robotic Cargo Cult?” which question of course wonder about every day).

So, if you are in the Dublin area, grab a pint and head down to Artbots 2008, we wish we could be there!

It’s getting gently hectic here in The Uncanny Valley, what with us heading off for points south for MakerFaire Austin, but here is a neat thing that appeared in my inbox this morning:

It is a giant mechanical flower that opens and closes at dawn and dusk, made by students at the University Of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

A few flashlights, a rubbish bin: presto. Robots and light sabers. Cool stuff from LICHTFAKTOR.

Nuffin’ like the right tool for the job, as they say. Tip of the hubcap to Eeeeevil Mad Scientist labs.

So I’m now the co-host for Systm, a cool DIY show on tech in all it’s forms (not just robots.)

In this weeks’ episode, we talk about ow to build your own segway (which could be a base for a balancing robot), and the cool that is TechShop in Menlo Park (it’s like a gym for your brain.)

Episode is below as an embed, or here in all its variants.

OK, so it doesn’t robotically dispense the paper. That’s the next version. But it is a robot toilet paper holder. And yes, if there’s any question at all, it’s from Japan.

[World War] via [Bot Junkie]

Heyo campers,

Rotor here, back from doing stupid things in the desert (with robots and pyro, more on that later).
Feet tired after those hard jetpack landings? Let the robotic ottoman take care of you (and freak out the pets):

Tip o’ the hubcap to the delightfully geekalicious Lady Ada

Channel Nine’s priorities are straight, of course, in a data set where giant killer bipedal robots firing airsoft pellets are top priority. Which they are. So have a watch and get all slobbery over MechWars, and then build one and inhale the awesome.

This Week on C9: Dynamic Silverlight, VSTS, buying Caio, and Mech Wars

[Thanks Andrew!]