Introduction: The Japanese Robot and Performance

Abstract

The introductory chapter provides background to the themes this book addresses. It locates the robot in Japanese history, and sees it as a figure that uniquely reflects and, in turn, shapes the Japanese approach to modernity and technology and thus its envisioning of the future. The chapter clarifies that the robot’s social resonance can only be adequately approached through concepts in theatre and performance studies, rather than in terms of the themes that typically characterise science and engineering narratives. This chapter argues that these theatre and performance concepts must first be inflected with particularly Japanese understandings of the way that objects can perform and the role of the spectator.