Would you like to live
in a world where there areno jobs to do, where everything is
done by living machines, and where human beings are free
from work?
This is the world
imagined in 1920 by the Czech author Karel Čapek in his play
R.U.R. that will
be performed by the students from the Trieste Secondary
School "G. Corsi".
The one-hour performance
takes place next Wednesday, 9 March 2016, in ICTP's Budinich
Lecture Hall at 12:00 and at 17:30. The play is in Italian
with English subtitles.
Several ICTP staff
members and scientists are involved in the project and will
be joining the student performers aged 12-13, including:
- Tarig Mahgoub Hassan
Abdelgadir
- Sananda Biswas
- Alaa Aly Elsayed Aly
Elshorbagy
- Najmeh Foroozani
- Ali Hassanali
- Fernando Villegas
- Valerio Cappellini
- Muhammad Iqbal
- Gordana Omanovic
The show's original text
is inspired by the play R.U.R. standing for
Rossum’s Universal
Robots (where Rossum is a wordplay with the Czech word
for "reason"). Karel Čapek's play, in which the word "robot"
is invented, came nearly a century in advance of many
currently relevant topics: artificial intelligence,
biotechnologies, losing jobs to robots, and the moral and
social implications of widespread robot use. ICTP scientists
enriched the script with personal reflections on the
frontiers of science.
You are most welcome to
attend any of the two performances.
We hope to see you
there!