Toy robots

In the research project ‘Toy Robots: Playing with Technoscience‘, I will seek to illuminate the sociocultural dimensions of technology by focusing onmechanical or electronic toys designed to resemble robots. From ancient steam-powered automata to the sixteenth century mechanical monk, from the Japanese tinplate humanoid Lilliput of the late 1930s to Lego Mindstorms from the turn of the millennium, there has been a great variety of robot-like creations that incorporated a strong element of playfulness. In the 1950s and 1960s in particular, a large number of anthropomorphic toy robots emerged, with names like Robert the Robot and Television Spaceman. Such toy robots became part of the everyday and helped shape expectations of technology and science, at a time when industrialised societies were concerned with automation and the resulting potential for mass unemployment. According to one hypothesis, the miniature designs served as a way to pacify the widespread concerns and fears of dehumanisation by technology. By providing children with the low-risk activity of handling toy robots, adults could creatively cope with anxieties about the technoscientific future and get accustomed to the changes to come. During the research project ‘Toy Robots: Playing with Technoscience‘, I will explore the uses and meanings of toy robots in the twentieth century. The toy robot collections of the Deutsches Museum, the Pinakothek der Moderne, and the Munich Toy Museum will serve as the basis and starting point of the research. Toy robots’ periodisation, typologies, functions, international variants, marketing, and uses will be investigated with the ultimate goal to explore how toy robots reflected the technoscientific development of their times and how such toys affected the public perception of technology and science.