Inspiration

Our robotic installation was heavily inspired by the Hungarian Pavilion’s concept in the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2006 where our team was reflecting to the usage of cheap, ubiquitous Chinese plastic toys. The installation in the Hungarian Pavilion provided a kind of alternative architectural experiment based on DIY methodology.

The Biennale exhibition

Yet, there is one point where press me installation differs from the one in the Pavilion. Instead of focusing to the structures of the DIY environment, this time we intend to highlight the relation between human and machine, users and their objects. Furthermore, we would like to refer to a kind of interaction critique. (More comes later…)

The installation in Institut Hongrois, Paris

But the actual basis of press me itself was the piece we made in Paris in November 2007 in Institut Hongrois, still as part of the re:orient experience. It became clear there that the most exciting point of the whole project for us wasn't really interactivity or the specific ambience we can achieve using these toys, but the toys themselves, their grotesque charm, the contradiction between the kitchy look, the pathetic ditties and the junk-technology inside.
Maybe this is why next time - compared to the piece in Paris - we're stripping down the installation to the basics, the robots themselves and we'll take a look what they can achieve by themselves, connected to form a quite simple network. We intend to consider this as a new starting point from which our play with these toys can take a new direction.

about the concept

Briefly, we wish to introduce a kind of robot aesthetics which is hidden in every Chinese moving plush toy. One can find these country singer cats, freestyler pigs or singing dog brides almost everywhere on the planet.











Since our original concept was to rethink some low-cost, low-tech Chinese gadget, we took off these plush toys’ fur and we got some greyish object consists of weird lashed-together plastic. Thus, they totally lost their featureless and kitschy look. Interestingly enough, they got some technicist and anthropomorphic feature. Our team has started to play around with these robotic figures and you can check the results on this blog.