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"Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together."
- Ray Bradbury
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| Robot Music | ||
| Music created and performed entirely by robots. |
As far as I know, the earliest use of this phrase in science fiction.
| Festival of the robots. The rocky amphitheatre was lighted now — a great red glare of swaying light from a funnel to one side. And the weird pseudo-factory again was in operation. From this angle the interior of one of its huge sheds was visible. Motley conglomeration of machinery! There was a great clanking upright engine of treadles, winches and a swaying crane. Eccentric cams clattered on another giant metal contrivance, powered by the engine with an intricate system of gears and belts between them. Monstrous fly heels whirled. Pulleys and chains hoisted and dropped huge weights with rhythmic banging thuds. A cacophony of stentorious metal sounds. Raucous shrieks of electronic sirens reverberated out into the rocky darkness. A pandemonium clangor, clanking, jangling — robot music, all in full blast now for this festival of the machines. |
| Technovelgy from The Robot God,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Weird Tales in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the machine music from The Machine Stops (1909) by EM Forster, the meloderge from Saboteur of Space (1944) by Robert Abernathy, the mechanical tune-maker (1954) from The Last of the Masters by Philip K. Dick and the computer-created dub from Neuromancer by William Gibson.
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| Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along |
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| Dancing Robots Taught Dance Moves |
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
