Karel Čapek: Czech Frankenstein
| Title in English | Cafe Neu Romance festival / European Robotics Week |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2012 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | "Who were you if you admired him?" asked Robert Wechsler in the article Čapek in America (1992). "Well, that question was answered very soon […]. You was a sci-fi fan." Čapek has been considered an important part of the science-fiction history, if for no other reason than that he had invented one of the principal characters of science fiction, the robot. The title of the lecture is a remake of Karel Čapek's R.U.R., Rossum's Universal Robots (1920/1921) first stage production in U.S.A. review by John Corbin headline, who called Karel Čapek "A Czecho-Slovak Frankenstein"(1922). I will introduce more examples of Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. reception in the first decade since its official first night in the National Theatre in Prague (January 25, 1921) during my lecture. An audience will be introduced with photographs and reviews of R.U.R. stage productions in Prague (1921), Berlin (1923), Vienna (1923), New York (1922), London (1923), and Paris (1924) with special attention to Robot character reception in different cultural contexts, as well as with first embodiments of mechanical robots immediately inspired by Čapek's Robots. I will deal with Robot as a metaphor of state of humanity in the Machine Age. The Robot as a dramatic character will be subjected to the semiological analyses to find set of motives that accompany the robot as an artistic medium till nowadays. The lecture wants to be a contribution to a media archeology of robot. |