"Alluring Androids" lecture in Rochester, NY

[jolshefsky]

Right in my own town, even – this just in from the City Hall press releases:

Julie Wosk will be at The Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County on Tuesday, May 13 at Noon to present her lecture entitled “Alluring Androids and Robots in Film, Photography & Art”. The program will be in the Kate Gleason Auditorium, 115 South Avenue [Rochester, NY, USA].

Filmmakers, photographers, and artists have long been fascinated by the idea of artificial women that seem alive. The Stepford Wives, Lara Croft, the latest in female Japanese robots look so real they can easily fool the eye. This illustrated slide-lecture showcases colorful images of female robots, androids, talking dolls, mannequins and other artificial women ranging from early automatons to lifelike female heroines in today’s video games. These images tell a startling tale of changing attitudes toward science and toward women themselves. The virtual women also raise provocative new questions: do men and women each view female robots differently? How do these images reveal men’s fantasies and fears about women? What happens when we can no longer tell the difference between an artificial woman (or man) and a real one? Will these ultra-realistic robots enhance our lives or challenge our humanity?

Dr. Julie Wosk is a professor of art history, English, and studio painting at the State University of New York, Maritime College, and also a painter and photographer. She is the author of the books “Women and the Machine: Representations From the Spinning Wheel to the Electric Age” (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) and “Breaking Frame: Technology and the Visual Arts in the Nineteenth Century” (Rutgers University Press, 1992), as well as numerous articles and reviews.

This program is presented as part of the Monroe County Library System’s Big Read, an initiative partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Julie Wosk’s appearance is sponsored by the NY Council for the Humanities.

[andoroido]

Your tax dollars at work.

A video, or at least audio recording would be interesting.

[Karel]

I could almost make it to Rochester, but an audio recording would definitely be good. Perhaps local public radio plans to broadcast one (and, as is typical, offer it for sale afterwards)?

[keraptis]

I must be misunderstanding the quote in the original post ... but since when is Lara Croft a robot?

Edit: OK, I guess they are saying the computer game character is an example of "artificial women that seem alive." And that such characters "look so real they can easily fool the eye." Sounds like a huge stretch to me. More importantly, it's a stretch to confuse people who get turned on by video game characters with robot fetishists.

We might as well start talking about people who had the hots for Jessica Rabbit.

[PowerDroid5000]

[quote="keraptis"]I must be misunderstanding the quote in the original post ... but since when is Lara Croft a robot?

Well, not Lara, but in the first movie she does training with an android .

[Sega-boy]

Mmm...Jessica Rabbit.

[jolshefsky]

FYI, Julie Wosk published her book titled Alluring Androids, Robot Women, and Electronic Eves. She's got a website for it and it's available on Amazon if you can't live without it.

[droidlvr]

since when is Lara Croft a robot

Whoa,was getting alittle interested there.

I guess i can calm down now.

[BA2]

the Lara Croft character may not be an android but surely Angelina is too well engineered to be human...?

BA

[dale coba]

the Lara Croft character may not be an android but surely Angelina is too well engineered to be human...?

BA

Ahh, if only her early film had led to sequels:

- Cyborg2:Behind the Pink Panel
- Cyborg2:Cash does Silicon Valley
- Cyborg2:Cash meets Emmanuelle ...







- Dale Coba