Čtvrtek 28. března 2024, svátek má Soňa
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Lidovky.cz

Czech ‘robotman’ molds junk into unique creations

  8:03

Pension-age engineer/artist Stanley Povoda, who also makes bizarre musical instruments, is taking his nine-piece robot band on tour

Stanley ‘Robotman’ Povoda is taking his android band on nationwide tour this year. Some of his homemade instruments feature in an interactive exhibition now at Prague’s Mánes gallery. foto: © Stanley PovodaČeská pozice

At an age when most of his peers are putting up their feet after a long working life, Stanley Povoda spends his days creating colorful “homemade” robots and musical instruments in a squat-like studio building, run by the adjacent Trafačka gallery, in the underbelly of an industrial Prague suburb. 

The jolly, slightly disheveled 66-year-old engineer and artist shares the run-down apartment block with two dozen young graffiti artists; on the walls of his cramped workshop are spray-painted pictures of robots his neighbors have created for him. “I’m still young in my heart. I have the same mentality that they have,” Povoda says. “We’re the same blood group.”

A moment later, as if on cue, one of the graffiti artists pokes his head in, and asks to bum a cigarette from Povoda, who is evidently a chain smoker. “Stanley’s great,” he says. “We call him our dad — not our granddad, mind you!”

Povoda says he made his first robot when he was just 15 years old. One day, captivated by a robot on TV — and in the process of reading Karel Čapek’s 1921 play “R.U.R.” (or “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” which famously gave the world the word robot) — he rushed down to the basement and began trying to construct one of his own. “I found some wood, cut it up, and made it into kind of square boxes. Then I got some motors from windshield wipers and things like that, and created my first monster,” he recalls. ‘I got some motors from windshield wipers and things like that, and created my first monster.’

In the intervening five decades, robots have been one of the few constants in Povoda’s somewhat nomadic life. He was twice locked up in his early teens for trying to flee Communist Czechoslovakia; when he finally succeeded in escaping, Povoda spent spells in Italy and France before settling in Canada and later the United States — he dropped his original first name, Marian, when living in North America, as in English the name “sounded feminine” — eventually returning to Prague in the early 1990s.

Placing a pile of old photos on his desk, overflowing with tools, wires, and bits of circuitry, Povoda points to a large, rather boxy robot that he employed as a gimmick to lure in customers to the San Francisco electronics store of which he was manager back in the early 1970s. (Take a 360 degree tour of his kitchen/workshop here. )

“In those days, there was no ‘Star Wars’ or anything like that; robots were a big novelty. People saw it on the sidewalk and went, ‘what is it?!’ They said, ‘If he can make a robot, it must be easy for him to fix a TV.’ So I had some good advertising!”

Povoda, who holds a master’s degree in electronic engineering, also made purely functional machines, such as an underwater device for the filming of marine biology. But it was his anthropomorphic robots that attracted the most attention, including from a number of media outlets in the US.

“In every newspaper, I always told every reporter, every newsman, that the word ‘robot’ is originally a Czech word,” says Povoda, adding that it was in fact coined “not by Karel Čapek but by his brother, Josef Čapek.” (The author was originally going to call the mechanical creatures laboři, Czech for “workers,” but prefered his brother’s suggestion, which is derived from a similar word common to most Slavic languages.)

The circuitry that Povoda uses is always new and similar to what would be found inside any robot. But the sexegenarian now commonly known as “Robotman” says it is the machines’ often striking appearances that have led some to describe him as “more of an artist than an engineer.”

The frames, or bodies, of his fantastic creations are almost entirely composed of material that is literally junk. “I build robots from things that people throw away. That’s why they have different shapes,” he says. “At first glance, people don’t realize that this bit is from an old TV, that bit’s from an old vacuum cleaner. When things get their final shape, they look like they’re supposed to be that way.”

Povoda says there was a time when he used to root around in dumpsters for potentially usable parts, but that changed when he was sponsored by REMA, a Prague-based non-profit that collects and disposes of used electrical and electronic devices. It lets him make use of whatever he likes.

“Good machines for me are old copier machines because they have several motors with gears. But in a PC, for instance, there is nothing you can use,” he says.

©YouTube Watch the fantastic musical and anthropomorphic creations of Stanley "robotman" Povoda in action (interview in Czech)

One of Povoda’s most successful robots was built around a knapsack spray tank used for combating garden bugs. “That’s kind of the perfect shape. I actually used it to make one robot that plays the violin. It looks like the Japanese made it, like it comes from a real factory.”

But perhaps his best known creation is based on a WD-40 brand oil can. Known as Wédéčko in Czech, the robot has MCed the awards ceremony at the country’s Fresh Film Festival (wearing an evening suit), and accompanied the Czech indie rock band The Prostitutes on stage.

Engineering music

Povoda was himself a capable musician in his youth, performing the accordion on compulsory hops-picking stays in the country “in the Commie days.” In recent years, he has utilized his musical skills to develop a number of bizarre-looking instruments —  including synthesizers housed in the bodies of acoustic guitars and old, outsized telephones.

He also produces theremins, whose eerie sound has been employed by everybody from the Beach Boys to makers of horror movies. “The theremin was the first electronic instrument in the world,” Povoda says, pointing to one on his desk. “There are so many different designs of theremins nowadays — they’ve become popular again. But I’m making 1930s-style ones.”

Povoda’s interest in music will soon see him unveil a project that has been in gestation for some time: a nine-piece robot band. “I’ve actually made seven robots, and one robot dog. The dog has a smoke machine inside it, two flame throwers, some lasers, and so on.”

When the two remaining robot musicians have been completed, the group (named Cloe, after his granddaughter in America) will be ready to start “practicing” — Povoda has already found a rehearsal space — with a view to making their debut performance at a Prague venue next month. The robot dog has a built-in smoke machine, flame throwers, and some lasers.

“The first concert will be at the beginning of March at the Meet Factory [the experimental Prague collective founded by Czech artist David Černý]. Then on May 13th there will be a big show and concert here at Trafačka. It’s going to be my 67th birthday party, and I’m holding it at [the gallery] because the robots have been built here.”

The project will not stop there: Stanley “Robotman” Povoda plans to take his android band on the road for a tour of the Czech Republic this year. In the meantime, some of his instruments feature in the hit interactive exhibition Play, which runs at Prague’s Mánes gallery until February 20th.

— Ian Willoughby is a Prague-based freelance writer

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