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Tickles the keys and play me a drink

I’m finally plowing through the massive amounts of footage I shot at Roboexotica in Vienna. This cocktail robot, the K&K Kavalier Klavier by students at FH Joanneum in Gratz, is a piano that allows one to “compose a drink”. You’ll notice a bunch of liquors and mixers mounted at the top. They connect to a series of tubes in the back that connect to valves controlled by a microcontroller that magically determines the right mixture of liquids based on the song you play. Here’s Astera making Red a drink with a little Bach piano concerto.


Astera plays a drink on the Kavalier Klavier from ekai on Vimeo.

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RoboVox speaks your mind

RoboVox lives

RoboVox stands proudly in front of the Museumsquartier, greeting visitors to Roboexotica. RoboVox is no ordinary 25 foot retro deco happy robot. If you look closely, you’ll notice those two big black circles on his chest are speakers. If you send an SMS text message to +43 681 10679782, RoboVox will speak your message loudly in his best robo-synthesized voice. RoboVox was conceived by prolific Slovenian artist and all around good guy Martin Bricelj, who is also an artist-in-residence here.

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Roboexotica uprising on track

It’s the day before the big opening of the main event here in Vienna, Austria, the 10th annual Roboexotica Festival for Cocktail-Robotics. Lots of preparation action going on in the Freiraum with several of Johannes’ students collaborating on a few delightfully rude drink dispensing bots. I’m happily joined here by many bot friendly pals from the States including Bre Pettis, CTP, Kal Spelletich, Al Honig and Mitch Heinrich to name just a few, all on track with their creations. Here’s some pix to whet your appetite of the madness to come.

Roboexotica setup

CTP arrives!

RoboVox assembles

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Metelkova, autonomous art city in Slovenia

While in Ljubljana, Slovenia recently for the HAIP festival, I detoured over to the autonomous artists enclave of Metelkova and snapped some pix. Metelkova began as a squat in 1993, taking over former military buildings of the Yugoslav Army. Now it consists of a handful of buildings that are event venues, gallery spaces and nightclubs. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take in the scene at night, though am quite happy at what I discovered by day. Check it out.

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Off to Helsinki to save the world

Nokia Open Lab

What do you get when you throw 30+ bloggers, video creators, gadget freaks and forum moderators from all around the world in a room together in Helsinki, Finland? I’d like to think we’re here to stop the world from assploding, but even we may not be able to do that. I don’t know the answer, but I’ll find out soon. I’m heading to the airport bound for Helsinki, the motherland for Nokia whom is behind all this. You can follow along on the Nokia Open Lab site.