Robyn praised by KTH

Swedish singer songwriter Robyn, as far from a 'Fembot' as you can come but always at the forefront of utilizing new technology. 

  • ”I've got some news for you / Fembots have feelings too / You split my heart in two / Now what you gonna do?” that’s what Swedish pop star Robyn sings in her song ”Fembot”. Robyn was recently awarded Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan’s Great Prize for her interest in and use of new technology. Many of Robyn’s songs are about satellites, robots, and even the speed of sound. She says she’ll donate the prize money to a cause in harmony with the prize.

  • She sings about satellites, robots, time machines, biomimicry, and the speed of sound. It’s about time then, that Swedish pop artist Robyn gets some praise for her use of technology in her music making. This year she’s the recipient of Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan’s (KTH or the Royal Institute of Technology) Grand Prize, which features 1.2 million SEK ($180,000).

  • Swedish singer-songwriter Robin Miriam Carlsson alias Robyn. Portrait by Lewis Chaplin / Creative Commons

  • ”She’s an amazing role model, and she uses new technology in an exciting way,” KTH’s director Peter Gudmundson says in a press release. ”I also personally like many of her songs.”

  • Exaggeratedly feminine Fembots with guns in their breasts, from Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery.

  • Former recipients of the award includes founder of Spotify, Daniel Ek, and Nobel Prize winner Hannes Alfvén (he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1970) along with the creator of Skype Niklas Zennström.
    Robyn says to KTH that she is honored and will donate the prize money to a cause that is in ”harmony with the character of the prize”. About her interest in technology she adds: ”Our world is an amazing place, and I am childishly interested in the universe, nature, and man.”

  • The official music video “Fembot” Robyn - Fembot (with Swedish singer-songwriter Robyn)

  • Fembot can be a lot of things... certainly as far from the entertainer Robyn as you could imagine. The original Fembots were female robots built to take down The Bionic Woman. The term was used in later years in Austin Powers movies and also the Transformers movies. From Urban Dictionary we learn that "[Fembot] ..allusion to the movie "Austin Powers," where very stereotypically beautiful women were actually robots designed to entrap the main character with their physical appeal and then kill him. Used to describe women, particularly in media, who fit beauty standards to an unrealistic degree and are presented as objects of sexual desire, yet bear the accompanying "bubbleheaded blonde" stereotype of low intelligence.