Other Little Projects For 2017

For a good while now I've been interested in the fetishization of robots by modern society. From an early age I was fascinated by famous robot characterizations like Gigantor, Astro boy, the robot from the Forbidden Planet and Invisible boy movies and of course Silent Running and Star Wars. These pre-real robots, I feel are an homages to a technology we don't quite know or understand as social phenomenon. I find myself asking what sort of waste and refuse will be left by them as they become obsolete like mobile phones from the 90's are now. Also I tend to think we have strange expectations of robots, will they bring with them happiness and new hope or be as co-modified as computers and their peripherals. In a way, I think that the modern artistic ideology of what a robot will be, is similar to that of the Cargo Cult natives of New Guinea and their building of effigies of airplanes with the belief that these likenesses would bring prosperity and plenty. The sculptures here, are a start to a theme I would like to pursue in my art. It is a mix of the cargo cult iconography, African fetish and that expectation of our modern culture that robots will bring solutions to many needs that we find it hard to address in society like pollution, war, elderly care, loneliness and the need for growth in economy.

I am calling this theme my robot fetish.