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Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Can’t help myself, 58th International Art Exhibition Venice, Italy 2019
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2019
- Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Can’t help myself, 58th International Art Exhibition, May You Live In Interesting Times, Biennale Arte 2019, August 31, 2019
The idea to use a robot came from the artists’ initial wish to test what could possibly replace an artist’s will in making a work and how could they do so with a machine. They modified a robotic arm, one often seen on production lines such as those in car manufacturing, by installing a custom-designed shovel to its front. Collaborating with two robotics engineers, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu designed a series of thirty-two movements for machine to perform. Their names for these movements, such as “scratch an itch,” “bow and shake,” and “ass shake,” reflect the artists’ intention to animate a machine. Observed from the cage-like acrylic partitions that isolate it in the gallery space, the machine seems to acquire consciousness and metamorphose into a life-form that has been captured and confined in the space. At the same time, for viewers the potentially eerie satisfaction of watching the robot’s continuous action elicits a sense of voyeurism and excitement, as opposed to thrills or suspense. In this case, who is more vulnerable: the human who built the machine or the machine who is controlled by a human?
CREDIT : www.guggenheim.org/artwork/34812
can't help myself art, can't help myself robot, can't help myself venice, can't help myself robot dies
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It took him so long to compose himself to even take one swipe then back into panick he went.
kanka robota cinsiyet verdin az once
I like how your labelling a robot, not a person, a MACHINE, “him” 💀
@@c0rny142 it’s a lil deeper than your thinking, the whole piece I mean
It’s not panicking. That was programmed as a “dance move” bc it’s a robot
@@fox15yamaha it’s an art exhibit, meant to cause emotional reactions in people. it’s not dancing, it’s SUPPOSED to look like it’s in a frantic panic
It moves like its so overwhelmed, like it has emotions
Edit : man idk how some of you think I'm stupid enough to think that the robot actually have feelings but alright. Its called art, its supposed to *look* like it has feelings when it doesn't.
It's so wild because when it was first installed, it was actually swiping and cleaning up. Only now when there is mo longer liquid except on the walls, its lost.
Oh honey, its called anthropomorphism
@@Mungobohne1 question, do you like reading?
Reading is Important in my field of study
@@Mungobohne1 i agree, but i was just asking cus u raidiate reader vibes
the noises it makes as it moves give me overwhelming chills it sounds like it’s screaming in pain
it’s just the motors tho
@@reecegg it's the rusty metal
@@reecegg well no shit
it sounds like it's screaming "help me", and it looks like it's asking "don't you see my suffering? why won't you help me?"
@@reecegg would you say "that's just paint" if you were looking at a painting?
The blood liquid splattered on the walls and glass and the people moving away as it comes closer even though it clearly cannot hurt them in anyway.. really says a lot to me for some reason
Too much blood
no I agree. it’s portrays that they’re backing away from the innocent. what has the machine done? it has no negative background, so therefore why be scared. really shows people being people without realising
isn’t it hydraulic fluid so it’s like the machine is bleeding
I thought it was oil
This is why we need to get closer to people who needs help with depression and anxiety.
This literally makes me cry…its like fixing somethings that too late to fix or cant be fixed at all, the movements are erratic the sounds are like screaming and its like a person in a mental breakdown
i absolutely agree wholeheartedly. it’s a heartbreaking metaphor
Make me worried
I agree
It's a robot 🤖
@@cliverivett6050 obviously it is
This always makes me think so much. This machine started out moving panicked in other videos, never stopping sweeping the liquid, but in this video it just looks so overwhelmed and it makes me feel empathetic for a literal machine. This artist/engineer was so smart in the way this piece was constructed
EDIT: omg the people pressed in the replies over my interpretation of an art piece
m im lm l l km khas hn jm vc ckck mx, mmber
@@oaz8 did you fall asleep writing this 😭
@@oaz8 are u ok
@@patwazowski8638 bro realy wrote a love letter for a robot
It's a fucking show dude shot ain't real dumbass
It moves like it’s saying “why are you all just watching me suffer??”
"Help me! I can't help myself!"
Yes, exactly. Such a beautiful piece.
I guess the name fits what it looks like, eh? Pretty depressing though if you really empathize with things easily.
I know! Out loud while he was panicking before the first swipe, I don't know why but I said "it's okay.:(" like I probably would have if I was there in the exhibit.
Right. Help me
The fact that it just stopped working in 2019 makes me even sadder. It wasn't broken or anything it just stopped
it gave up i think
I think it was programmed to give up like that, but it's just so sad...
It ran out of hydraulic fluid.
@@calmingsounds6248 It ran on electrical motors and the fluid was not hydraulic. It's a popular misconception that people have been spreading around. Likely the motor just burned out after 3 years of constant use, which also would have explained the lethargic movements from the crane arm.
It just finally wore down, no longer having the strength to keep holding it all in. An equally-grim outcome.
@@hehehe88 you can't stop that misconception from spreading, people are dumb for sure. It's nice to see someone else in the comments that actually looked into this instead of believing everything they read on the Web
I feel bad for it. And I don’t understand why. I feel a connection to it
Boy
Me too🥺🥺
😂 it’s just a machine lol
Dawg
it doesnt feel the same about you
It feels like someone who is trying to fix something and they just try again and again mostly making things worst , but when the mess is cleaned and the problem is fixed they just don't know what to do because their so used in trying to help themselves and due to that their trying to fix what is already fixed and that resolves to making a mess again
Damn this hit hard
What makes this art piece even more sad is that you can look at videos when it was first installed, such fast and fluid movements, now it with all of the mess caked onto it’s own body, it slowed down so much. Only a matter of time till it breaks down from corrosion :(
where can i find a video of when it was first installed?
@@giannal345 They're generally harder to find, since the machine mucks up so quickly, but if you just look up the name of the piece on youtube and look at older videos, you'll start to see a difference
I read, just today, that it already broke down, back in 2019.
@@DanyGlezSval Dang, guess it's life as an exhibit ended sooner than I realized. Makes me pretty sad, if I'm being honest, I wanted to see it for myself.
@@Kona_Brewed you can still see it!! it just doesn’t move anymore
I love this piece and at the same time I'm terrified/disrurbed by the strength of emotion it portrays. The force of it just runs me into the ground every time I see it. There is something so primal and so desperate in the machine's movement.
the way the longer this art piece has been trying to endlessly clean up its mess and fails, the liquid is starting to decay and rot onto it, and as you can see it starts to drown in its problems and has given up in trying to fix it anymore and just let itself go insane stuck in its own mess for eternity
And then dies eventually:(
I love reading everyone's interpretations of this installation. That's the definition of art, it invokes emotion and makes you think and feel something. And I think the metaphor of this piece can apply to so many different things. It's relatable in so many ways and that's what makes it so striking and powerful.
I’m just surprised no one has pointed out this explanation:
A slaughter house with glass walls.
This imagery of a showing the industrialisation of butchery has given much thought to human behaviour in the Industrial Age. I feel that is the artists foremost perspective here.
Also, Jessica just wanted to say, I actually recognise you from some conversations that we’ve had on other videos as well. Crazy that we actually watch and comment so similarly! Haha.
And here i am a robotics technician wondering if its lost the step instructions and has a corrupted parameters list
I don't think it should be considered art if the only emotion it provokes is
"huh ?"
"why is this here ?"
"what the hell ?"
@@nipun108 my first thought seeing this was “Bloodbath” only to see other comments making actual sense of it 😂
This reminds me of the feeling of guilt. Trying to fix something you feel is your fault and eventually getting so overwhelmed you fall back into the habits that caused it
Even worse is that it was built this way, destined to fail from the beginning and it never knew :(((((
just watched a short video on the making of this piece, and when it was first made, to me, it didn't seem panicked at all and almost seemed happy to be alive and doing this job. now, as it slowly corrodes it starts to feel more and more panicked, or at least as panicked as a robot could seem, symbolism aside
The fact thats its a robot and it somehow makes people so horribly sad shows its an amazing piece of art
make me sad too
No, it just means that people wrap their emotions into the wrong things. It's a machine that is programmed to do just that. It's not art by any means. What it means is someone with already too much money decided hey....how can I make people think this is art. 🤦🤦. I would rather see macaroni art from a blind person
Any car guy will tell you that machines truly do have soul, life, energy inside it. The fact that a man-made object isn’t perfect means that it can make mistakes, you can make a bond with it in a way you can’t have with many other things. This little machine, so spritely and full of life when it was first put together, now struggling to keep itself composed enough to do a fraction of the activity it used to do in the blink of an eye, it speaks to me and many others in a way nothing else can. It’s a beautiful representation of life, how no matter how well-oiled or machined we are, no matter how hard we try, we’ll all eventually break down. The only thing we can count on is our friends and families to put us back together when we finally crack.
Preach brother. Your words and your TF2 Engineer icon combined made me think of Story of a Sentry. Beautiful.
@@LocketInThinePocket Thanks brother, it’s people like you that make the world go ‘round.
Lol I've never heard a car guy say anything like this.
@@wesleytrout4931 Jeremy Clarkson said almost exactly this.
@@wesleytrout4931 you sure?
It's trying. I know it is.
@@stellaceleste9748 just say u dont get it and go stella its not that hard 😐
@@stellaceleste9748 ok stella cry abt it
@@sofiasofia1316 thank you 😊
@@stellaceleste9748 actually, it's not cringe. this actually scares me. People put effort into it, and it has the ability to let you feel emotions, even though it isn't alive. think twice.
@@stellaceleste9748 The only thing cringe here is you, stella.
You know that art is special when even the people viewing it are an element of its expression.
I like how they don’t clean it, so overtime you can see how the more and more it tries the more it fails
this, this awesome observation
in a weird way i relate to this. a feeling of stress and being overwhelmed, trying to pick up pieces of myself and continuing to fail as the mess grows bigger.
Very well put, i too relate in this way
Therapy
Looks like the liquid is starting to dry up and lessen
Its starting to heal but still leave stains
@@user-re9qb7en7y this might be one of the best comments i’ve ever read on youtube. You’re so right. Pain may leave scars but they’ll fade.
It moves like a terrified little child cleaning up a broken glass as their parents yell at them, trying desperately to fix the broken pieces over and over again, like on loop. You can tell by its movements that its in distress and is overwhelmed
it's a robot it isn't in distress
@@nattyhaha there is different ways of interpreting art literal or symbolic
@@nattyhaha Bruh what if YOU are cleaning the fake blood for 6 years. Huh? WHAT WOULD YOU DO HUH
@@seiichihubert4a625 It's a robot not a person you just can't compare them. A robot does not have its own conscience, it cannot make choices or have emotion.
@@nattyhaha No way! Really? The machine is portrayed to be mimicking someone who can’t fix a mess that it is manipulated into cleaning. It’s supposed to have meaning. It’s supposed to be living. It’s an example of what some have to do. So if people find it sad, you don’t have to mention how its a robot. Look into the meaning of it and if you don’t agree, alright. But don’t bring other people down because you see it differently.
i cry anytime i see this exhibit
Crying is a right way to watch it
Why?
@@ArthurKingoftheBritons404 ni!
You people are strange af.
@@jdubz33 yeah how come every one is sad looking at this?
it's making me cry. it feels like it's falling apart over and over again just to try to keep it together and seeing it be so panicked makes me feel understood in a way i can't put into words
Exactly. The level of sadness is unbelievable.
The fact that it can’t stop and just take a breath is so upsetting 🥺
I love how the artist programmed in dance moves and waves for him to do so he’ll seem more human so he can make a connection to the audience on a ground basis level
Thank god I'm not the only one who can just keep crying and crying over this cuz i can relate so much
This piece makes me think of parents who lose their children in school shootings. Their kids blood inevitability being wiped off the floor as the parents try to piece their life together and keep from crumbling. It is a constant struggle and an antagonizing battle that many parents and families have devastatingly gone through.
Good way to understand the meaning of the machine.
This really breaks my heart..What gets me when it keeps rocking back and forth for a bit like it’s trying to catch it’s breathe but seemly on the verge of having a mental breakdown and that there’s no way of stopping the fluid that continually keeps leaking out of it which it keeps trying ..hits hard🥺
I just wanna give that robot a big hug and tell it I'm proud of it
i dont know but i find it brilliant that as the years go by, the liquid's noe decaying and how messy the room is now compared to when it was newly installed takes a whole lot of meaning. the blood now on the walls and how the machine is soaked and tired from all the years in it's own liquid clearly says all its attempts are futile.
It's like it's just frantically, desperately looking for someone to help it. Realizes help isn't coming and goes back to trying to fix it itself but it just- it can't keep going on, it's so angry, so frustrated, so scared.
Nobody came. Nobody helps.
And yet it still looks.
the way it moves around like its looking at everyone makes me wonder if its aware that its just an art robot and people pay to watch it’s misery and panic
not me understanding what the people are saying- "he looks angry"
I personally would say desperate.
I wouldn’t say angry, but I would say frustrated.
I love how you can see from It's movements that It's in "agony" flight with It's self, having a panick attack and then just calming down accepting It's fate and surviving. It's like us, we fight everyday to live, to survive, doing hours of work then having a mental breackdown thinking about how we can't take this anymore, cos we are tired of living like this, then just sucking it up and going back to our lives, doing the same thing all over again.
This artwork is just amazing. I can’t add more it’s just amazing. Especially when you watch videos from a few years ago and then 2019. How everything becomes messier and the robot starts getting tired and move weird.
You can see how tiring it is to work and work but never achieve anything, and I think many many people can relate to this exhausting and depressive feeling.
it’s its life experiences its life is a mess and it is trying to clean it up but it’s overwhelming at times but no matter what it’s desperately trying to clean it’s life. that’s my perspective
I love this art piece. This is the first video ive seen of the machine behaving in such an erratic way though. It's enchanting and almost haunting to me how it almost seems to be reaching out as far as it can, almost trying to break free. This piece puts me in complete awe. I hope to see it in person someday
Yes, it is wonderful. Open mind
“There’s too much but I have to keep going, there’s no other way than to keep going on”
It’s moving like it has lost its self , overwhelmed , and scared kinda feeling
This is what I called modern art!
I never get why some arts got so popular, and in my opinion only "so overrated".
But this piece is so relatable of how it dancing the beginning of its life, unaware of itself being "disadvantaged-ly" created to be "bled-out"(like how human only focus on themselves in the now and not thinking about the future). Only until closer to dying, does the arm realize but at that point it has been too late and it can only damaged-control at the last of its life, no longer dancing around.
I love his dancing too. It is a metaphor of life
Showed this to my husband who is neuro divergent and struggles with any type of emotions (he's normally very "I don't care unless it's about me") and his response was "someone needs to fix it so it can have a break" I then explained to him that it was coded to do that and he said it's not fair. I told him he had then felt empathy for an inanimate object. His eyes widened.
Everyone is over here feeling some kind of way, finding meaning, seeing art 🎨 and I'm just here like "wtf??"
It's just the red blood like liquid making everyone react. If it was a different color or not there I think people would think it's funny. Just my take though.
@@Davidakabigfoot it's what it's doing has a deeper meaning
@@Davidakabigfoot fun fact actually runs off of electricity, not hydraulics, so it was working its entire life towards something it didn't even need, tricked by the system it was brought into.
I literally thought this was the scene from Cabin In The Woods.
This is pretty terrifying
“As the machine sweeps and sweeps the blood splattered ground, the screeching noises it’s joints make, is almost as if it’s screaming in agony, waving around frantically as if it’s scared and frightened at the sight of itself in the glass window all those people watching in amusement as it tried to escape the endless loop of solemnly sweeping up the blood of its loved ones screaming for help, and uncontrollable pain, but alas the robot keeps sweeping though it is clearly terrified of what is to come next.”
I can't even fucking fathom how emotional this makes me. i'm an empath but I never expected to feel so much overwhelming empathy for a machine. just.. if It could speak, I think it would be just screaming in agony by now, much like the metal screech noises. but early on in it's display, just imagine. the first swipe and its saying "oh. ok." but as it goes on, it realizes that its just making more of a mess the more it cleans, trying desperately to fix what it started. and everybody is watching it. "wait. WAIT. please. oh god. please. fix it. fix it. please. help me." you can even SEE IT at 0:05 going to the audience, it looks like its screaming for help. I don't know how to even describe it properly. god I love art and this is a prime example of my favorite pieces. all I know is that I'm definitely getting inspired by this. also incredibly sad.
This art has a meaning to never give up and more meanings too.
The main objective for the robot/machine is to clean up their own oil
And for 3 years its still trying, robots/machines don't have feelings but we do that's the reason why we feel sad watching this robot/machine clean
It's because it represents us humans and lots of different meanings, the robot/machine is an arm just like a humans arm trying to get rid of their own blood and still trying to get rid of the blood loss
Just like us humans making mistakes and trying, never give up kids this is some good meaning and good art
RIP Cant help myself 2016-2019
Now it doesn't have to suffer no more
for the people saying that it’s literally just a robot with no emotions: it’s not just any robot, it’s a piece of art and it’s supposed to make you feel something
i do feel bad for it, it looks so tired of trying, it’s an excellent representation of what it feels like to do the same over and over again until it destroys you
then maybe use a human trying to complete a task that cant be done in the exhibit. all i see is a machine following a script written by a human, that seems to have achieved his/her goal of entertaining people by making them think machines are alive and have feelings. the willful ignorance of humanity and it's trying to project it's perspective of existence on an object is more curious to me than the exhibit its self. feels like low effort false equivalency and most are taking the bait
@@jasonbrown467 i don’t think that machines are alive or have feelings, it’s just that the way it is moving reminds me of being really tired (clearly a human feeling)🤷🏻♀️
it’s a piece of art so that was the objective of the artist, to accomplish some sort of representation for their feelings
@@jasonbrown467 Do you feel the same way when a fictional character dies in a book or movie? The robot has been tasked to play out a character, one that is obviously not real but people project consciousness into it exactly how one would to a collection of words. People aren't looking at the machine itself but the story of a distressed creature.
I like how the display is still filled with the insides of the last person who tried to turn off the robot manually
To me this piece is about self sabotage. This series of movements it goes through looks like how it feels when you've ruined every aspect of your own life and you're starting to regret it & you want to fix it, but there's just too much. You've seen all the damage you did and how none of it will ever be the same, and all you can do is scream and cry in mourning for the life you never thought you would miss and all the people you pushed away. Absolutely devastating. I love it.
man, i love conceptual art. stop making me feel things!
This is genuinely so interesting, it has always made me think so much. The artist who made this is extremely skilled
Makes me want to cry. I feel like it resonated a lot with who i think i am as a person and how i communicate. Wow creativity at its finest. ❤
It sounds like its stressed, overwhelmed and having a complete meltdown, and stressing over something that is impossible too do. Like its in pain, and suffering.
Its so amazing how a moving object can look like so many things at once.
The way I see this is it seems to be in a state of panic trying to fix or “clean up” something that it caused in a state of distress and as it moves around to different sides of the glass frantically, people move away from it slightly which to me displays the idea that it’s alone in a panic with no one to help but still being stared at…
Panick, anxiety, try so hard to get together but it is struggling severely seeming like it doesn't know what to do
It keeps going back to its original task, completely unable to leave. Its effected everything around it; its not just the ground that's red now. The walls and windows of its enclosure are red, it itself is red. This piece is called "Can't Help Myself", so it makes me think about being completely trapped by either a bad habit/behavior, addiction, or perhaps even depression. It lashes out, frustrated as it continues to work hard, doing what its supposed to. It's surrounded by the one thing it's supposed to get rid of, and there's nothing it can do about it anymore. It gets overwhelmed, flailing in some desperate attempt to either help itself or get someone else to take it away from it's madness. People and and watch, even back away. And then it's back to the same old task.
It's emotional and genius.
For those that can't appreciate this as art, relax. It is a randomized program that runs this machine in order to mimic, mimic, something that has self awareness
A lot of people interpret it's sounds and movements as being erratic and panicked. I see it as finally living it's last days dancing as it wanted to, as it was programmed, and causally sweeping up the fluid to continue to do what it wants, to dance, not just to soley survive.
In it's objective to frantically stop the 'blood' it spreads it even more creating a problem it can no longer control and is now in despair....was there any control to begin with?? 🙁
Nossa que lindo! Conseguiu expressar a dor pessoal, e a tentativa de auto cuidado. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Breaks my heart every time.
Remember that man who started tearing up every time someone mentioned some old car brand (I don't even know whether it was Ducatti or Bugatti lol)
I am like that when I talk about this art installation.
✌️
Pure desperation
I once saw a comment saying it's amazing how people can interpret it in away way they said no matter how hard you try to push away truama its always there
This pieces and “Whos scared of the colors Red yellow and Blue” are just such good conversational art pieces imo
What a very useful device. Life just could not be without it .
It kinda sounds like it’s wailing :(
I remember seeing this in person after a whole day of walking through the humid heat and abstract messes. I didn't exactly hate it, I even took a video of it, but all the potential meaning of it was completely lost on me and all that remained was humour at the big, expensive, out of place machine
This is a metaphor for how we feel industry is helping us, but in our attempts to fix the damage that we are causing the Earth & to ourselves we find out that it's IRREVERSABLE. We are bleeding faster than we can stitch up the wounds ❤
Reminds me of healing from excruciating heartbreak or trauma. Each minute of the day you try your hardest to salvage your dignity but you become tired and numb in the process all for the world to see.
Funny to me that people who doesn't understand art and in how much ways it can expressed is calling us art appreciating the art as "weird".
The person who made the art definitely chose sad and painful emotions as the reference and programmed it to move a certain way in different periods of time by it starting out to work just as it intended to be a "paint sweeper" then gets erratic as it doesn't really stop working for rest to what we see in the video... not even sweeping anything just flailing in fast motion but never landed anywhere solid, like a worker going crazy under the stress of work piled onto their shoulders.
Don't want to acknowledge it and refuse interpretation? Fine be ignorant like that
Holy shit the way it's just fucking writhing
I already went into depth on just how incredible the piece and the discussion it sparks is on another vid of it but it's just
Dude
Maybe it's just cuz I'm a super sensitive n sympathetic person, but the way the artist managed to pack such raw, visceral, human emotion into a robot. God it's just awe-inspiring. I strive to be able to create this level of just sheer guttural emotion in my writing - I try to take things and push them to their most mind splitting limit, and this piece is more or less exactly the kind of feeling I want to be able to invoke with my writing as a visual piece.
Tldr; shits inspiring
to me this piece represents that our obsessions could lead to our undoing. in 2016 the robot looked happy but in 2019 it looks tired. you can see some of the liquid has caked itself onto the machine. it sounds like it’s in pain. it’s very similar to the way humans have obsessions or addictions. they may seem fun at first but if you form an unhealthy obsession it can destroy you
The sounds with the mess is just perfection truly
if you are reading this, please always reach out for help you are never alone ❤️
Its movement at 1:01 makes me think like it’s saying “Ah, I’m doing this again. I’m tired of it” but then it still do what it needs to do :((
14 year old girls will cry over this and deem this torture 😂😂😂
It's just a great work of art, and as it shall be understood
Wow!I'm beyond impressed!that's definitely a fine work of art!a mega scooper!!!are you kidding me!!?????👍👍👍👍👍
it got even messier :(
Ah, yes - l’art.
What an effective way to convey the hellish feeling of regret.
I recently shifted into my new home and let me tell you, this is exactly what I did and felt on the first day after shifting into an empty home with a shit ton of boxes... I just didn't know where to start and I didn't know where anything was or I couldn't find the box I needed because it was under other boxes..... so I ended up just lying down on the floor and then cried a bit until I fell asleep.
It was probably due to the fact that a lot of other shit had happened in that one week and I barely slept that entire week so I was just very stressed, disoriented and sleep deprived.
After my nap, however, I managed to get my shit together and now I'm more or less done. Today is the 3rd day in my new home and it looks more like a home than an empty room with boxes.
This art piece is so good
literally me throughout college
i love seeing how people say “this piece has always moved me” but their comments are no further than 3 months ago (specifically 3 months, 2 months, 3-2 weeks) which just so happened to be when this art instalment started trending on tiktok… it’s an amazing work but in truth it’s only being viewed as a trend
Or finally recognized.
I think it's somehow both heartwarming and sinister that the original intended meaning of the piece, as a commentary on violence and migratory control, has been completely drowned out by the interpretation of it needing the blood-like liquid to survive. In reality, it doesn't, and yet tries futily to contains something that wasn't meant to be contained. The liquid is people, who were meant to move freely but are rigidly contained by state borders, with violent punishment awaiting those who breach arbritarily drawn lines, represented by the bloodstains the robot leaves behind as it "cleans up."
But people see the state/robot's human-like emotive behaviour and project onto it, see the escaping liquid as innately belonging to it, and we see the tragedy not in the robot's endless cleaning, but in the fact that it will never succeed in doing so. We see the containment of something that cannot be contained as *just*, as *right*, even if it's literally impossible.
I can't help but get emotional seeing people relate to this robot as a metaphor for anxiety and depression. But it also feels chilling that by humanizing the robot (intentional on the creators' part, who wanted to remind us that those who carry out this violence are indeed also human) while denying the agency of the liquid trying to escpe it, we are essentially rooting for violence. It is indeed very easy for people to root for violence when they think of the perpetrators as human but the victims as not.
I've always thought, as do many others, that the piece sounds distressed. The noise as it cleans resembles screams of pain. But is it the robot that's in pain, or is it causing that pain?
It's just a machine that is moving back and forth. You wanna see something profound, look at all the homeless on the street.
I’m not gonna lie, this exhibit really doesn’t hit me as hard as it is obviously hitting some other people. However, just from the comment section you can see how much this feeling of helplessness and constantly trying to do better because you “just can’t help yourself” really resonates.
why does it feel like it's been grieving and in pain. It's like too many died in the process. This video made me cry.
I am currently writing an essay on importance of explanation in art, using this art piece as an example. Essentially, the main idea is that in order for the artist to display a meaning or convey some sort of thought or emotion within the audience, it's important for them to know how to structure their artwork in a way that is effective in communicating with their audience. Looking at it from a rather objective perspective, it is simply a robot programmed to perform a job, it does not feel any sort of exhaustion or agony from performing these motions. However, as the liquid has a deep red colour which is similar to blood, the audience makes a connection between this and blood; making the machine rather, humane so to say. In addition to this, the endless cycle of completing a chore only to do it again as it becomes messy again is easy for people to relate to, think cleaning up dishes or taking out the trash: it always has to be done.
For this piece, I find it rather interesting how the artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu has decided to include the little 'dance' and 'waving' motions the robot performs in between the scooping of the liquid. I thought of the alternative, of leaving it to simply do the scooping motions in a cycle, and I believe the alternative would be rather boring. The audience would have lost interest after a while should the exhibition only consist of a robot scooping up ink. Yes, the visual of scooping up blood, and the idea of a continuous never-ending task, would still stand. However, including the little 'waves' and 'dancing' makes the robot even more human-like. Not only that, but it makes us feel sorry for the robot, as it has to stop dancing to continue its task. The artistic choices made in this art piece is truly admirable, they are effective in creating a vision and expressing a scene of humane emotions using simply a robotic arm and some red ink.
It is unfortunate that the installation had to be taken down, I would have loved to experience it in person :)
I could make so much money if I sold this to chemical labs and put it on wheels. It's like a dangerous chemical wiping roomba.
i want this robot to be turned off
Now it is off luckily
a lot of ppl have been saying that it's just a robot and that it has no feelings but like we humans do. And us humans, when we feel something towards anything, doesn't matter if it's living or not, we tend to get attached. and ofc this robot won't feeling shit but we do and only those who felt and understood the art will feel this sense of guilt.
this just makes me think back to my own life and life itself. since i was a toddler i was treated like a machine. my emotions and the person i was inside never mattered. i always had high expectations on me and there was always something i had to do to “finally” reach the end goal. but there is nothing i can do. there is no “end goal” for me or anyone else. there is nothing we can do about it, because there is always something we must do until we reach our end permanently. i’ve reached the point where i’ve failed, when all that mattered to anyone i knew was for me to reach their version of fulfillment. it’s impossible. the people in my life saw me as gifted and i could clean up every mess like the people behind the glass. i cant do it anymore. i cant be who i was forced to be. i can’t achieve what i was intended to do. now im overwhelmed and tired like this machine. i was a machine for so long to the point where i’m shutting down. idk if i can live like this anymore; i’m tired, but i know that if i ultimately can’t solve my problems, i will have to end things myself. and i will just be a machine that people watched and spectacled, until there is nothing left to observe.
I don't know you but I'm here to talk.
I want to talk with you too. It is interesting theory
I love this installation so much!
for anyone who doesn't know why its moving so much, its because it hadnt had any of the red liquid spread out yet because it's algorithm is too sweep in the red liquid as soon as it goes out of a predetermined radius around it
This is why i love art
I'm obsessed with this.