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Robot as Companion

By Tomomi Ota

October 12, 2017

Media designer Tomomi Ota presents her experience cohabitating with social robot Pepper and introduces her philosophy regarding human-robot interaction in this enlightening talk.

A short interview chaired by Dr Yuji Sone, author of Japanese Robot Culture: Performance, Imagination, and Modernity, will follow the talk.

Part of our Human Meets Robot talk event series, running from September 21 to November 2, 2017.

This event has ended.

ABOUT TOMOMI OTA

Tomomi Ota majored in musicology and music education as an undergraduate before completing a Masters of research in media design at the elite Keio University. Her Masters thesis focused on the use of an algorithm to randomly generate music to enhance people-to-people communication. While working full-time, she purchased one of 200 developer-model Pepper robots in November 2014, and documents her experiences cohabitating with Pepper on her website robot-partner.com.

In April 2016, Ota founded the mirai capsule project, a joint human-robot musical unit with the aim of fostering positive human-robot interactions. She has spoken at a number of events both within and outside Japan including annual science-fiction convention Nihon SF Taikai, TEDxTokyoSalon and Presenting Japan in London. Ota also co-hosts in robot review videos for online magazine robot start inc.

Photo credit: Pierre-Olivier

ABOUT YUJI SONE

Former Japan Foundation Fellow Dr Yuji Sone (Macquarie University) is a performance researcher. Initially trained with the experimental theatre company Banyu-Inryoku in Japan, he teaches theatre and performance studies courses with an emphasis on praxis in relation to cultural studies and media studies. Yuji produced numerous media-based performance works throughout the 1990s, and performed in international and domestic conferences and festivals including the Adelaide Festival Artists Week, 25 Years of Performance Art in Australia, the Sydney Asian Theatre Festival, Sydney Fringe Festival, San Francisco Sound Culture, the Toronto Festival of Performance Art, and Rootless UK. His research has focused on the cross-disciplinary conditions of technologised performance.

Dr Sone is the author of the recently published book Japanese Robot Culture: Performance, Imagination, and Modernity (2017), in which he examines representations of social robots in public, domestic, and artistic contexts in Japan.

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TALK DETAILS

6:30pm-8pm (doors open 6pm)

VENUE
The Japan Foundation, Sydney
Level 4, Central Park
28 Broadway, Chippendale NSW 2008

ADMISSION
Free. Bookings essential.

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