All Is Full of Love Pleasure Chris Cunningham in collaboration with Paul Catling Six years after its release, British director Chris Cunningham’s video for Machines: Icelandic pop queen Björk’s “All Is Full of Love” (1998) remains one of the most elegant and sophisticated examples of machine erotics. The opening sequence takes the spectator through a dark, womblike environment crossed Full oF lo with cables and faintly pulsating with light. The whole experience feels voyeuristic, as if the black box of technology is about to open up. This is exactly what happens: we are greeted by a clean, white – yet not sterile – The Bar lab space. It evokes a soft, Zenlike purity rather than a machinic edge. On the floor in the fetal position lies a Björk robot, in a state of semi-disas - [Art projects by Chris Cunningham in collab - sembly. The pose suggests an infantile helplessness, yet is simultaneously very seductive, reminiscent of baroque paintings in which damsels recline oration with Paul Catling and Time’s Up in languidly on chaises longues in anticipation of earthy delights. collaboration with the Humanoid Robotics The receptivity of the Björk-bot appears passive: her features are frozen; she doesn’t seem to feel any kind of emotion as she sings to her Laboratory] imaginary lover. Who is this lover? Do we as spectators secretly hope she is addressing us? Her stare is fixed on the camera as she is “worked on,” which informs our viewing sensibility with a slight perverse and exhibitionist streak. As viewers we are pulled into looking over her milky white surfaces, 180 Humans have always had the tendency to anthropomorphize their technol - her smooth yet unfinished, voluptuous body. We are allowed intimate peeks 181 ogy and inscribe their machines with emotional value. Whether we are per - into instrumentalized crevices and mechanized orifices: a techie’s wet sonalizing our computers, gendering our cars or rendering our mobile phones dream. as prosthetic devices, our relationship with our technology far exceeds that Throughout the video the tension between pure, ethereal innocence – of user and tool. In particular, the fields of artificial intelligence, artificial life augmented by the white-porcelain aesthetics of the robots – and sexual and especially robotics have been a fascination to popular culture, media desire is played out. As the lyrics move from an almost maternal promise of and technology studies, literature, and art. The word “robot” is derived from protection and caretaking – “You’ll be given love/ you’ll be taken care of/ the Czech word for labor, robota . Humanoid robots were originally designed you’ll be given love/ you’ll have to trust it” – to a more reproachful lover’s in the image of humans, for servitude to humans. From the golem to pres - tone – “You just ain’t receiving…/ your phone is off the hook…/ your doors ent-day industrial automatons, the relationship between man and its are shut” – we move towards an increasingly eroticized space. We follow the mechanical counterpart has always been hierarchical. However, the wish for Björk-bot as the (m)other machines, which she is umbilically attached to, bio-mimicry in robotics – in other words the conscious copying of examples tenderly nurture her to machine maturity and then set her free. The imagery and mechanisms from natural organisms and ecologies – has continued to be an aspiration for aficionados, and a source of anxiety for skeptics. The argument is often made that what distinguishes humans from machines is our emotional faculties, our capacity for empathy, and the fact that most of our actions are driven by desire. With their projects, Chris Cunningham and Time’s Up have designed robots driven by probably the two most human desires of all: sex and intoxication.

CHRIS CUNNINGHAM • All Is Full of Love • related to the latter becomes much more suggestive and masculine as the CHRIS CUNNINGHAM video proceeds: pistons pumping fluids, drilling and penetrative motions. • All Is Full of Love • The choreography that follows echoes mainstream heterosexual pornogra - phy, in which the “lesbian” act – in this case between the enraptured female robots – is cosmetic and serves to please the (male) gaze. Indeed, the kiss - ing robots are surrounded by masculine machinery, “finishing” them off” so to speak. They seem programmed for our viewing pleasure. Yet a different reading could argue that this automated autoeroticism (how else would one refer to two identical robots making love?) is self-sufficient and self-indul - gent: no human hand is involved; it is all purely machinic. This is quite dif - ferent from a cyborgian sexuality, in which the humanity of the cyborg as well as its mutual attraction to humans plays a significant role. The closing shots pull us in and out of darkness, arousing our desire in expectation of what is to come next. The dynamic at work here is similar to that in a peep show: revealing, concealing, revealing, concealing, with the objets du désir occupying center stage: an economy of wanting. As the music fades and the pulsating beat becomes more dominant, we are once again drawn into the womb-like dark space, making it clear to us that we have had a glimpse of a black-boxed kingdom.

183 The Bar Bot Time’s Up, in collaboration with Humanoid Robotics Laboratory

Helena: No, you don’t understand me. What we really want is to – to liberate the Robots. Helman: How do you propose to do that? Helena: They are to be dealt with like human beings. Helman: Aha. I suppose they’re to vote? To drink beer? To order us about? (from the theatre play “R. U. R. – Rossum’s Universal Robots” by Karel Capek)

Robots are usually designed to serve humans. In recent years robotics research has concentrated on robots that closely mimic essential human features. Thus Honda’s humanoid robot P3 is capable of independently climbing a staircase, although twenty technicians are needed to keep it bal - anced. The Bar Bot , a fully automated robot waiter in the DEAF04 exhibition bar, raises the question of what exactly makes a robot human. At first sight Bar Bot looks like a normal robot there to serve bar guests, but its true nature quickly becomes apparent.

The Bar Bot can recognize bar guests with its special video camera eye. As soon as you stand in front of it, it asks you for money and holds out its hand. Then it calculates how much change it has received. If this is enough for a beer, it goes to the bar and orders one. The Bar Bot thus possesses a num - ber of traits that are characteristic of people, such as social interaction, facial recognition and intelligence. It functions in the limited environment of the bar as an autonomous being; all that it lacks is a will of its own. But what would happen if the Bar Bot stopped serving humans and started serv - ing itself?

The Bar Bot was designed to put this thought experiment into practice. Whereas robots always serve others, humans usually act out of self-inter - est, or in the interest of the social group to which they belong. The Bar Bot is equally egotistical. Driven by self-interest, it will do anything it can to get money for beer. Its goal, however, is not to quench our thirst, but get as much beer as possible inside itself. But to do this it depends on others. Open communication becomes vital, for only through social interaction can it get its hands on a beer. The Bar Bot may be the most human robot ever built.

185

TIME'S UP • The Bar Bot •