Today is the opening day for Roboexotica, the international festival for cocktail robotics. As many of you know, I’m here in Vienna, Austria as a guest of the festival. I just woke up and the sun just went down — am I ready for a cocktail? Ummm, not quite yet, but I’m wandering around the machines and robots and panicked builders shooting video and taking pictures. It’s exciting and cool; there are robots here from all over that doo all kinds of things, from launching cocktail garnishes to stabbing ice to, well, mixing your drinks for you. There are about two dozen students here from the art college in Graz (Austria) with all of their projects as well, from machines to multimedia installations, and the event is located in the Museumquartier, which has been my compound for the past few days. It’s amazing to be part of a show in the heart of art museums in Vienna and I can’t get enough of walking out the door to see the museum of modern art, etc.
Vienna is absolutely gorgeous and wonderful. The architecture is a Nouveau wet dream, the people friendly and sweet even though I speak like three words of German, there is coffee with soymilk a plenty, the food is great and the whole city center is teeming with xmas/holiday decor and stands selling hot mulled wine and roasted chestnuts and crafty stuff. Last night Johannes took a bunch of us San Franciscans out to a traditional Viennese dinner, where the staff all wore the classic outfits and the food was, well, from Vienna. I avoided things made of blood. After, Vale and Johannes and Marion went to sleep, Simone and David went back to work on robots, and Jonathan and I went to an underground jazz club full of Dieter-like Austrians smoking and drinking and being very serious about the bad free-form jazz. Awesome!
Watch the video I just shot of the cocktail robots here or embedded after the jump. More soon!
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