The Death of the Robots : A Comparison of Karel Čapek’s 『R.U.R.』 and Nam June Paik’s Robot Art

Eom, Soyeon (2025) “The Death of the Robots : A Comparison of Karel Čapek’s 『R.U.R.』 and Nam June Paik’s Robot Art <Robot K-456>”

http://dx.doi.org/10.21208/kla.2025.12.56.99

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ABSTRACT

This study focuses on ‘the death of robots’ and aimed to explore its implications and significance by comparing and analyzing Karel Čapek’s play 『R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots)』and Nam June Paik’s robot art <Robot K-456>. To this end, Chapter 2 examined the concept of robot in 『R.U.R.』 and the characters -humans and robots-, from the perspective of death. And Chapter 3 explored Nam June Paik’s message in causing the death of <Robot K-456> through a planned traffic accident. Based on the above discussion, Chapter 4 compared and analyzed Chapters 2 and 3 to explore the implications and significance of ‘the death of the robots’ discussed in the two works. As a result, the two authors diagnosed the 20th century technological civilization with artistic imagination and thought, transcending genre and cognitive differences, and called our attention to the relationship between humans, machines, and art. In the case of 『R.U.R.』, it showed ‘the rebirth of humanity through death’ in which a robot becomes human through death, <Robot K-456> displayed ‘the birth of art through death’ in which technology itself is satirized and absorbed into art. Such implications still resonate in the age of intelligent information technology, where scientific and technological development is becoming increasingly advanced and accelerated.