World Premiere 2010
20 Nao Robots Dancing in Synchronized Harmony. Here’s a sneak peek at the soon to be famous dancing Nao robots, the technological mascot of the France Pavilion. The robots are « rehearsing » before their first public appearance on June 21, on the day of France Pavilion Day, which coincides with Music Day in France. The performance showcases Nao’s range of smooth yet agile and rhythmic movements to a 3-part music compilation including the famous orchestral masterpiece Bolero by French composer Maurice Ravel. This also marks the first time robots have supported an artistic field evoking emotions. Nao is a humanoid, autonomous, interactive and completely programmable robot created by Aldebaran Robotics (www.aldebaran-robotics.com/en), the worldwide leader in humanoid robotics.
Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love
Mori Art Museum (MAM) 2010. For most human beings their own body represents both the most familiar and most unknown of worlds. From ancient times humans have sought to unravel the secret mechanisms of the body, developing in the process a wealth of medical expertise. At the same time we have seen our own bodies as vessels for the representation of ideals of beauty, and long sought to depict our bodies in paintings and drawings. Leonardo da Vinci, who went so far as to dissect human bodies in order to make more accurate depictions of them, is perhaps the single creator whose output best embodies the integration of the scientific and artistic aspects of the body. This exhibition, with its theme of « the human body as the meeting place of science (medicine) and art, » was made possible with the cooperation of the Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest independent charity funding research into human health. Consisting of around 150 valuable medical artifacts from the Wellcome Collection and around 30 works of old Japanese and contemporary art, the exhibition presents an integrated vision of medicine and the arts, science and beauty. The show is a unique attempt to reconsider the science’s role in health and happiness and also the meaning of human life and death. A highlight of the exhibition is three anatomical sketches by Leonardo da Vinci from the Royal Collection, owned by Queen Elizabeth II. Web site : http://www.mori.art.museum/html/english/contents/medicine/exhibition/index.html