Imagining New Futures: National Narratives in the Japanese Science Museum

The social robot is often presented as a solution to the ongoing demographic crisis and economic stagnation Japan faces, both by Japan itself and by the international community. The Japanese are viewed as inhabitants of a culturally unique affinity towards robots in both Japanese and non-Japanese media and academics, a widely circulated narrative that has tethered advanced technology to the notion of “Japanese-ness”. This study argues that the Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (the Miraikan) in Tokyo as an institution harnesses this narrative of the Japanese love of robots to legitimize a specific version of the future, which the social robot is part of. Through a combination of Lotman’s cultural semiotics and the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, the article examines what version of the future is being presented at the Miraikan by analyzing the concrete messages presented at and by the museum. As the Museum is backed by the Japanese state, academia, and industry through a variety of policies and initiatives, the narrative is presented and communicated to the Japanese public in what can be viewed as an act of autocommunication. The robots in the exhibitions at the Miraikan works as a boundary object facilitating the communication between the Museum and its visitors, positioned in the periphery of a technoscientific semiospheric foam in the bigger national semiosphere of Japan. The article shows that while the robotic figure in the museum itself has evolved from hyperrealistic androids to cute robotic companions, core traits remain fixed, as the ideologies behind them are unchanged. The robot’s meaning is crystallized at the Miraikan, solidifying the narrative of the Japanese love of robots and further promoting the sociotechnical narrative at hand.