Resources
Supertoys: A User's Manual - available from the Arnolfini bookshop.
Supertoys Symposium: Hello Toy!, Arnolfini, 14 Jan 2009.
Supertoys blog.
Toys: Are They Playing With You? - related exhibition from 1987 focussing on power relations.
Books (fiction):
Brian Aldiss, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (Orbit, 2001) - the inspiration for 'supertoys'.
M.T. Anderson, Feed - set in a dystopian future, teenagers live off the 'feed' plugged into their heads. includes an interesting sub-ploy about US relations with the rest of the world.
Isaac Asimov, Robbie - unsettling perspective on the adult view of robots playing with children - neighbours feeling uncomfortable about letting it/him near their children, but when parents give in to pressure and get rid of Robbie, their child is distaught.
Ray Bradbury, There Will Come Soft Rains - a lyrically written short story about a robot/mechanised house going on with its life despite all the occupants having left.
Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio (Jonathan Cape, 2005) - less a fairy tale about a wooden puppet, more a playful and humourous social satire on manners, mores and moral lessons on responsibility.
Nicholas Fisk, Grinny - a disturbing, extremely suspense-filled sci-fi story about an "Aunt" who comes to stay and turns out to be an alien from another planet.
Russell Hoban, The Mouse and his Child (Puffin, 1976) - Deeply existential tale of father and son toy tin mice joined face-to-face, who, with one wind-up mechanism to keep them shuffling slowly along, embark on a dangerous quest to find lost friends, family and home.
David McKee, I Hate My Teddybear - a surrealist picturebook with 2 children so busy arguing about whose teddy is best, they fail to notice the teddies have arguments of their own.
Jan Pienkowski, Robot - an inventive and active pop-up picturebook, in Pienkowski's indimitable style.
Michael Rosen, The Golem of Old Prague (Andre Deutsch, 1990) - a series of stories set in the Prague Jewish ghettos, including how Rabbi Loeb made a Golem (animated being) which, because it is not human, 'can never be evil'.
Sean Tan, The Lost Thing - complex narrative about a machine/toy and the boy who finds it looking for where it might belong, from a striking new Australian picturebook artist.
Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real (Egmont, 2004) - a stuffed toy rabbit comes to life in this classic tale of the transformational power of love. "Real isn't how you're made", said Skin Horse. "it's a thing that happens to you."
John Wyndham, Chocky (Penguin, 1973) - a young boy starts what looks like a phase of talking to himself, then can suddenly count in binary code, eventually confessing to a character called 'Chocky' living inside his head.
Books (non fiction):
Bruno Bettleheim, 'Joey: A Mechanical Boy?', (Scientific American 1959), reprinted in B. Grenville, ed. The Uncanny: Experiments in Cyborg Culture (Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery / Arsenal Pulp Press, 2001).
Matteo Bittanti and Domenico Quaranta, eds. GameScenes. Art in the Age of Videogames (John & Levi, 2006), http://www.gamescenes.org/.
Roger Caillois, Play & Games (University of Illinois Press 2001 (1958))
Eric Clark, The Real Toy Story - an exposé of the toy industry, its aggressive marketing and factory conditions.
Costall and Dreier, eds. Doing Things with Things: The Design and Use of Everyday Objects (Ashgate, 2006).
Chris Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self (Cambridge University Press, 1981)
Jacques Derrida, 'The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow)'
Jon Dovey and Helen W. Kennedy, Game Cultures: computer games as new media (Maidenhead & New York: Open University Press 2006)
Allison Druin and James Hender, eds. Robots for Kids: Exploring New Technologies for Learning - includes examples of learning projects that have used robots and children's responses to them.
Anthony Dunne, Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience and Critical Design (RCA, 1999).
Dylan Evans, 'Can Robots have Emotions?'
Steve Grand, Growing Up With Lucy: How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003).
Robert Hinshelwood, Susan Robinson and Oscar Zarate, Introducing Melanie Klein (Icon Books, 1999)
Johan H. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Beacon Press, 1992)
Frederic Kaplan, 'Artificial Attachment: Will a Robot ever pass Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Test?'
Stan Rudinytsky, Transitional Objects and Potential Spaces
Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play (Harvard University Press, 2001)
Tom Trevor, Robot-Me - an introduction to some of the ideas underpinning the Supertoys exhibition (Arnolfini Journal Issue 1, forthcoming)
Sherry Turkle, Evocative Objects (MIT Press, 2007).
Sherry Turkle, 'A Nascent Robotics Culture: New Complicities for Companionship'
Sherry Turkle, The Second Self - study of children’s use of computors and how this affects their development).
McKenzie Wark, Gamer Theory.
D.W. Winnicott, 'Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena'
D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality
D.W. Winnicott, Home is Where we Start From (Penguin Books)
Gaby Wood, Living Dolls: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life (Faber & Faber, 2003) - a cultural history of automata.
Film and TV:
Toy Story (Dir: John Lasseter, 1995 USA)
Robots (Dir: Chris Wedge, 2005, USA)
Wall E (Dir: Andrew Stanton, 2008, USA)
The Apprentice: programme 2, talkbackTHAMES - The teams design toys - VHS copy available at Arnolfini.
Digital Handcraft (Alexandra Weltz, co author Sarah Bormann, 2008, Video 28 mins) - China's global factory for computers.
Web links:
Vaucanson's Duck - Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, was an automaton in the form of duck, created by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739 (see movie).
Anonymous Poem, 1821, about geese and property rights.
Bristol Robotics Lab - creating autonomous devices capable of working independently, with each other, or with us in our human society.
Walking with Robots - network brings key intelligent robotics researchers together with leading science communicators to promote a wider public engagement with the reality of contemporary robotics research.
iCub Robot story, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7268965.stm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICub.
AuRoRA Project - studies how a mobile robot can become a 'toy', and a therapeutic tool for getting children with autism interested in interactions with the environment (Adaptive Systems Research Group, University of Hertfordshire).
BugVinyl - collectible toys aimed at kidults and influenced by graphic novels, street fashion and graffiti art
The Loud Objects Noise Toy, http://www.loudobjects.com/kit/
Designing Interactive Toys, http://www.mediamatic.net/page/47180/en
Dream Toys Exhibition, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2008/oct/15/1?picture=338626017
Kraftwerk, We Are the Robots, //www.dailymotion.com/video/x20zyu_kraftwerk-we-are-the-robots_music
Dancing robots to Tatu, I am a Robot, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0YwZUJgDDY&NR=1
Game/Play, http://blog.game-play.org.uk/
Zero Gamer, exhibition, http://www.http.uk.net/zerogamer/
Heart Robot - bringing puppetry and robotics together to help us explore emotions, http://www.heartrobot.org.uk/
Homo Ludens Ludens, exhibition at laboral.
Feelix Growing, http://www.feelix-growing.org/, and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6389105.stm.
Steve Grand's Lucy http://www.primidi.com/2004/03/19.html and related works at Cyberlife-Research - as a good example of an approach to technology and robots inspired by biology.
Natalie Jeremijenko's How Stuff Is Made - implying the question 'How Toys Are Made' which is part of the future intention of her project.
Kid carpet - music using Fisher Price guitars and plastic toys plucked from various car-boot sales and charity shops.
Leonal Moura http://www.leonelmoura.com/ - artist working with robotics.
Robot History - a short set of historical references.
Lego - robotic play
Modified Toy Orchestra performance
Ludic Society - artistic research investigating games and play.
James May's Big Ideas, http://www.open2.net/jamesmay/man_machine.html
Play Research Group, School of Cultural Studies, UWE - looks interesting, and is local (although their focus on play is applied to computer games in particular it seems).
PINO is a humanoid robot based on Pinocchio - and there are lots of related web sites to hack it such as Open PINO Platform.
Toy Robots Initiative t.r.i. - aims to commercialise robotics technologies for human-robot collaboration in education, toys, entertainment and art (Mobile Robot Programming Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University).
Swarm bots pulling a child, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJOubyiITsE
ToyNoise - toy instruments (videoclip).
Toys R Us - yuk!
Alan Winfield's blog, http://alanwinfield.blogspot.com/
Zprod.org - robotics workshops, etc. with Bill Bigge and Paul Granjon.
SchoolForge advocates the use of open texts and lessons, open curricula, free software and open source in education, http://www.schoolforge.net/
TuxPaint, Open Source Drawing Software for Children, http://www.tuxpaint.org/
Wikipedia definition of Toy
Wikipedia definition of Robot
Wikipedia definition of Transitional Object
Interesting use of recycled toys for a shop window display for Recycling Week.
Information about the Korean Government's plans to establish a Robot Ethics Charter by H B Shim, Robots Division of The Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.
Roboethics website including Roboethics Roadmap
Hexapod, and iC, hexapod robot that can spot, track and interact with human faces, Micromagic Systems Robotics Lab.
ArtBots, http://www.artbots.org/.
Barbie Liberation Organization (®TMark), http://www.rtmark.com/blo.html - the voiceboxes of three hundred Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls were switched.
Distorted Barbie, http://www.detritus.net/projects/barbie/.
Views on Barbie by children from Headley Park Primary School, Bristol.
Aqua's Barbie Girl - subject of lawsuit from Mattel.
Playing Fair, Dolls are for girls and Lego is for boys, article by Dorothy Lepkowska, The Guardian, 16 Dec 2008.
Some statistics on toys.
Ben Winstone's website. Ben made the new ducks and geese in the exhibition and is leading the Robotic Feral Dog workshops.
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