Hawthorn's newest museum invites you to chat with therapy chatbots and spend time with a breathing teddy bear.
FRIEND opens at the National Communication Museum on 1 November exploring relationships between humans and machines.
The exhibition runs until 26 April 2026 in the museum’s Hawthorn galleries, featuring robots from nostalgic toys to futuristic humanoids. FRIEND is a collaboration between the National Communication Museum and studioBOWL from Japan, transforming the space into an interactive playground where visitors can sit, play and spend time with robots and machines.
FRIEND
- Where: National Communication Museum, 375 Burwood Road, Hawthorn
- When: 1 November-26 April 2026
- Entry: Free with museum admission
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So what is a friend, really?
The exhibition features WABOT-2 from 1984, the world’s first full-scale creative humanoid robot capable of reading music and playing organ, making its Australian debut. Visitors can interact with a Furby Choir featuring dozens of retro toys, some loaned from the National Communication Museum community and others rewired by the museum’s studio team to respond when asked ‘what is a friend’?
Weak Robots from Japan stumble, forget and sometimes need help, turning vulnerability into a feature. Trickless Bear, an adult-sized gently breathing teddy bear created by artist EJ SON, blurs the line between comfort object and uncanny companion. The work is presented with Open Space Bae from Busan as part of the National Communication Museum’s regional partnerships.
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A therapy chatbot, revived
ELIZA, one of the world’s first therapy chatbots originally created by Joseph Weizenbaum in the 1960s, has been revived on retro hardware and run on an emulation mainframe by the museum’s studio team. Pepper, a discontinued service robot, has been revived to read emotions, greet visitors and tell stories.
Brandon Tay’s new commission Doomscroll Dreamachine turns social media scrolling into a hypnotic light and sound experience. Elena Knox’s Protective Seal features a Japanese therapy robot taken to the Arctic, presented with her immersive video installation documenting the journey and staged in Australia for the first time.
Each work comes with playful how-to-interact stickers ranging from ask me a question to give me a cuddle. The exhibition is designed for slow engagement with bright colours, playful materials and spaces to pause and interact, whether stroking Qoobo, a cushion-like robot with a wagging tail, or gazing at hypnotic lights.
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