PARO: Mental Commitment Robot, 2008

Exhibited at

• QUTs Virion, a screen based digital art exhibition that links public sites across Brisbane, staged in the Kelvin Grove Urban Screen Network. 19 July to 1 August 2010

On a visit to Japan in 2006, Erica was waiting at Osaka airport where she came across the Mental Commitment Robot.  The infantilised robotic seal moves when activated by touch by stroking it through the hole in its perspex box and is a result of cognitive research into therapeutic medicine designed to create emotional responses in patients.

By creating this short video Erica explores the imploring emotional response this robot demands from the participant and highlights the increasing dislocation of human experience from real nature in the 21st century.