The Sex Life of Robots

"The Sex Life of Robots." Eighth episode of Show 3 of Disinformation, on DVD, of 16 half-hour episodes, 1999-2002, UK's Channel 4 TV. Richard Metzger, dir., host, prod. (with Bradley Novicoff). Available in a 2-disk DVD set, released 27 Jan. 2004, ASIN B00013F2ZE. Produced by The Disinformation Company, copyright 2002. Actual robot porn sequence, just under 4 min.

Mike Sullivan, identified as an "animator" (with pun?), produces pornography featuring tiny robots made from—in all the cases we see—Barbie dolls, converted with clay and paint from smooth and pink and Modern to Industrial po-mo. Unlike Björk's "All is full of love" (q.v. under Music), the robots here engage simply in sex, but with reproduction. Aside from the copulation, cinematic shots include a comically explosive "money shot," robot sperm moving through machine mazes toward robot eggs (with two overly enthusiastic sperm—male and female—humping each other: the only hint of non-heterosexual sex), the development of a robot embryo, and, finally, the birth and sending off into the world of a robot baby. JM Downey notes "that in some of the sex scenes it seems that the physical sex organ of the 'male' robot is completely detached and independent from 'him' and is [… controlled] by another robot." Downey asks if this might suggest "that sex organs are another mechanical extension of the changing landscape of human experience." Useful for the Henri Bergsonian idea of the imposition "of the mechanical upon the organic" (see H. Bergson under Background) and as—as indicated in the dialog with M. Sullivan—a comment on the mechanical nature of a significant amount of professional pornography and, just perhaps, a fair amount of human sex more generally.

(RDE, 25/II/04, 27Dec14; JM (sic) Downey, 1/III/04)