Headless man sues over missing PKD robot, loses
Two years ago, Hanson Robotics' incredible Philip K. Dick robot head went missing. David Hanson had left it in the overhead bin on an America West airplane and it hasn't been seen since. Hanson sued the airlines but the case was recently dismissed. The summary judgement is a laff-riot. Here's an excerpt, posted at the Total Dick-Head blog:
Previously on BB:
• PKD robot still lost Link
• PKD robot MIA Link
• Philip K. Dick robot Link
LinkPlaintiff David Hanson (“Plaintiff”) has lost his head. More specifically, Plaintiff has lost an artistically and scientifically valuable robotic head modeled after famous science fiction author Philip K. Dick (“Head”). Dick’s well-known body of work has resulted in movies such as Total Recall, Blade Runner, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly, and a large group of admirers has grown following his death in Orange County, California, in 1982. His stories have questioned whether robots can be human (see, e.g., Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)), so it seems appropriate that Plaintiff reincarnated Dick as a robot which included the Head, valued at around $750,000. (Motion 1:9-10.)
Previously on BB:
• PKD robot still lost Link
• PKD robot MIA Link
• Philip K. Dick robot Link
the latest
latest episodes
I can't believe that you didn't title this Man Sues Over Lost Dick Head.
Aww, he just needs to go to Exo-Export Monopolies, as per Thomas Disch:
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/text/head.html
probably some flight attendant named Salome got it.
Sure, the airlines will fuck ya, but they won't give ya a little head!
Okay, the android sounds pretty cool and all, but where in the world did they come up with an estimated value for just the head of $750,000?
It's a shame that this item was lost, but if Hanson left it there himself, and he didn't buy any special insurance for it, seems like the court reached the only decision it could.
Antinous,
Hey pal, this isn't Fark.
Would have been an awesome headline, though.
I have been completely baffled throughout this ordeal as to how one can board an aircraft with a 'head-in-a-box' and leave it behind when one gets off the plane. Really now, it's not like it was a sweater or a pair of gloves. Hanson, what were you thinking about?
Dick in a box, Falcon. It's a Dick in a box. Or part of one, anyway.
i think phil would either be completely disgusted by this, or he's laughing his ass off in the afterlife. it's just what ive been saying for the last 30 years,: we live in a pkd novel!
This is one of those cases where use of the word 'missing' seems rather weaselly... the guy forgot it. He had a Philip K.Dick robot head, and he forgot to take it with him. You might forget to get your sponge bag, an mp3 player, your glasses... but a Philip K.Dick robotic head?
Suing the airline seems like a feeble attempt to shift the responsibility to me...
I knew Dave in college. He was a strange, and very talented man - one of the few students who was actually thinking about his work, as opposed to aping the latest popular illustrator, artist, or filmmaker. He had some pretty far-out work that got the little professor's darlings all wound up. (I guess I could talk about it, but I figure if Dave wants you to know about it, he's probably written about it somewhere). Late in my senior year I locked myself up in the oxberry room with my stack of paper and transparencies to shoot my animated film. An Oxberry is a giant downshooter with lights and a geared platen and camera tower - the room was big, and light-tight. I went in on a Friday evening, and had a little japanese boombox and two tapes of surf music. By 2 am saturday I was going nuts listening to the same damn two tapes, and took a walk around through the film building and its piles of cigarette butts to see if anyone had anything else I could listen to. I ran into Dave and he gave me this cassette of Martin Denny albums that I popped into my little player. Somewhere during that tape I had to change out the film in the camera with a short end that I happily discovered was all unraveled. So there I was in this pitch black room, rolling film onto a little spool and the tape flips over and it's a recording of a woman singing in a shower - At this point I'd been up somewhere close to 48 hours and the combination of this, the completely dark room and Dave's little tape of far out music sent me over the edge into hallucinations of showers and monsters and I swear at one point I was drifting through outerspace trying to thread an unfamiliar camera by touch alone. So.. all things being what they are, I gotta thank Dave for turning me on to Martin Denny - and I'm glad he's doing well.