Daily Archive

I’ve always liked the idea of robots dancing.  Not like the advert where the car turns (sorry, transforms)  into a robot and starts thrashing, that scares me a bit.  And the music isn’t so good.  But no, a proper robot, dancing.  Preferably one that looks recognisably humanoid. 

In particular, I’ve always liked the idea of programming a robot to dance.  Dancing wouldn’t be its primary function, for dancing can really only be a secondary function for people other than Michael Flatley, and most people (in fact the overwhelming majority) are people other than Michael Flatley.

You could create a robot which is so brilliant and intelligent that it could beat Garry Kasparov at chess (where has he been since then?  In some sort of almighty chess huff?  I always thought the bishop on the chess board looks a bit huffy.  Maybe he has become a bishop, forever doomed to wander squares of one colour), could design and build a house, could fly a plane and could hunt and slay a tiger using customisable knife and fire limb attachments. 

As an additional feature, you could  (nay, should) program it to dance on command, whenever it hears a particular piece of music.  For example, S Club 7’s magnum opus “Don’t Stop Movin’”.  Whenever it hears this, it forgets whatever it is doing, and starts frugging, bumping and grinding, doing the twist or whatever the youth do these days in those dancehalls, or whatever the youth call those places these days.  It would have to sing too.  “Beep Beep Beep-Beep, Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep-Beep, Beep-Beep Beep-Beep Beep-Beep Beep BEEP BEEP BEEP”.  All without any emotion being shown on its huge metal face.

Of course, chess games would most likely have to be forfeited, houses would be designed with curious purple ziggurat extensions, planes would spear themselves into the ground at hundreds of miles per hour, and most worryingly, tigers would remain at large to kill and eat millions of people.  However you have to weight these things up.  You got to see a robot dance, didn’t you?

Anyway, as I was sort of saying, the new Strønen/Storløkken record, or Humcrush as they seem to indicate they want to be called now, is really good (although not as stunning as Thomas Strønen’s hypercussive Pohlitz album from earlier this year), but makes me think about dancing robots.