Have you ever drawn this robot before?
A metallic figure with a rectangular body. Atop which is a head with an unusually featureless face. Sometimes with antennae, the body is covered in nuts or bolts or things that create the illusion of metal. The arms are either articulated throughout their length or just at the elbows and shoulders. The end of their arms come to a distinct point punctuated by claw hands (just two digits). Their torso almost always has a control panel, or some sort of light array that could provide information as to the insides of such a creature, hopefully for man to understand and control. Their legs are constructed similarly to their arms, the range of motions but often they appear upon square and awkward flat feet. Some with tank tracks that allow them to move without bipedal locomotion.
Where does this idea come from? Is it not easy to imagine this figure or apply it to one you already know? Have you ever depicted this robot before?
Let's talk about Robotic Archetypes (regarding the robot)
What do Robots look like?
How do we identify simple drawings or depictions in art with elements of an Archetype?
Do small cues help create the illusion of understanding?
In Robots
- Articulated arm joints
- Completely articulated arms and legs
- Claws or hands
- Tank tread or wheeled feet
- Chrome or polished metal
- Dimple strengthened metal
- Antennae
- Metal Panels
- Blank/Simple Face
- If I am sculpting a robot out of earth (not a typical robot material) how do I convince an on-looker that the Robot (Specific robot and general idea of a robot) is what I am creating?
- I use symbolic, literal, and visual language
What about GOLEMS? (The precursors to the Robots of Modernity). The golem comes from Jewish origins, men made from mud and stone that were animated by a blessing of the name of god being placed in their mouths. Most importantly, what necessitates the creation of a GOLEM? In our oldest origins of the archetype, Protection and the need for magical invulnerability.
Where do the visual language cues for Robots come from?
My three big shining lights for where the origins of the visual language of robots come from Lost in Space (1965), Čapek's RUR (1903), and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927)
I believe that a lot of the traits of the Archetype come from Čapek's depiction of robots in his play from 1903. The costumer and set direction being done by Čapek's brother can be seen as intentional choices overseen by Čapek himself.
The chrome colour of their costumes is a simple cue we can see in the modern Archetype of the Robot. But, I believe that the limitations of costuming in the 1900s created the trend of articulated arms and legs we see today. The costumes have a distinct bellows shape at the shoulder and elbow to allow the actors a wide range of motion. These are similar to the kind we see in Robot depictions, especially those of the 1950s to the present. Čapek and his brother were relying on visual cues about the character to dictate the costumes the actors wore. They were men made of metal, who needed to work and move like humans. Nowadays we generate the look of a character in order to meet arbitrary traits of an Archetype, contrary to what Čapek's brother did for the characters of the play.
Metropolis has similar themes. Why in all my examples do the robots inhabit a human world, one not ruled by them, where they are the exception to the rule?
In Metropolis, the Art Deco aesthetic rules the screen. The images throughout this piece remind us more of skyscrapers and buildings than of metal men. But this Robot possesses another trait which I will get into more later, one of SIMULATION and Mimicry. Beyond this, the robot in Metropolis is metallic and has a very featureless face compared to the human faces of the Czech Republic 20 years earlier. The suit resembles medieval plate armor more than the robots we know today. But we can see inklings of the articulated elbows for the movement that the actor would have required in order to do their job.
I think that due to its long run in America in the 1960s and its syndication, Lost in Space's B-9 robot is one of the most iconic in the western zeitgeist.
In the gap of 30 years the ideas about technology and its future caught up to science-fiction writers. The Atomic Age was upon us and the commonplace of the automobile made the future even further away than it ever was before. This is where we see the Archetype of the robot shed a lot of its more traditional humanoid characteristics. B-9 gets claws, different from metal hands, and tracks, instead of locomotive walking. It loses the features of its face almost completely as if the only interaction you need to do with it will all occur at the new control panel on its chest. Antennae and Vacuum tubes could be seen through the machines of the populace so these begin to appear around this time, where B-9's head is now a glorified giant Nixie Tube.
Go search "robot" on Google images. This is the visual library that "AI" generative tools are trained on now, they are our transparent look into how we understand Archetypes and visual traits.
A number of images stood out when researching this post. That all the robots nowadays are white, and I think I have an idea of where that comes from.
Just like how the technology that the population could see and touch informed the visual traits of B-9 in Lost in Space, I believe that this trend of white-coloured robots comes from the ubiquity of Apple in the early 2000s to today, as well as our cultural conception that seamless white is futuristic.
So the visual traits of a creature like the ROBOT come from our interactions with the things that make up those characters... Technology. The changes in the technology of the 1960s change the visual Archetype of the robot as well. Archetypes come from people's relationships to things in our lives. Archetypes are what are accepted as visual representations of an Archetype, not existing as concepts in a vacuum.
What does the future of the Robot of Modernity look like? (Literally)
Why is Spot yellow? I believe this because Boston Dynamics (the consumer division at least) intends for Spot's use cases to be on job sites, rescue operations, or at distances. You will need to see Spot run. So Spot is Yellow.
As the technology surrounding real robots and user-focused technology changes, we will see changes in the Archetype of the Robot. Robots of the 1960s are Silver, Robots of the 2000s are white and the robots of the future are? (Maybe Yellow)
-Murido
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