By Filippo Vanucci (February 7, 2009) (Technovelgy Group Assignment)

HYPNO-MOTOR FLAT CAT

By Jill H. and Filippo Vanucci

Download the concept here: Hypno-Motor Flat Cat (pdf)

There was a running theme of animals as robots, especially animals that would perform services for people. Modeling the robots after animals made them seem friendlier and more appealing. The Flat Cat in the story was an actual animal and didn’t have an obvious function besides being a strange pet. We decided that it could be both pet and functional object if we turned it into a Hypno-Motor mind control device.
The Hypno-Motor Control device in Philip K Dick’s novel was used to make people safer drivers. The slogan being, “Surrender your body and save your life.”  We wanted ours to perform some sort of function in the home. We thought it could briefly take over people’s motor controls to “remind” them to do something – like using fewer resources. The cat would be marketed to people who wanted to be environmentally friendly anyways. We would make the idea of mind control less frightening by hiding it inside an appealing pet.