So, this has brought me out of my blog slump.
[http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2007/11/29/robot_love/index.html]
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows me even a little bit that I love robots. Like rilly, rilly, love robots. Hence: the Robbie the robot figurine on my window sill, the inexplicable sympathy for the Daleks, the early morning wishing for a coffee/cleaning robot in the manner of the Jetsons' Rosie, the childhood dream to be turned into a kid-robot in the style of the red dressed, white aproned "Small Wonder" (am I the only one who remembers that show?). And of course the "choice" Conchords song set in "the distant future: the year 2000." Good news for the dorky single girl then to learn that robot boyfriends may well be the way of the future. Very good news indeed...
To give you the lowdown:
One hardcore nerd called David Levy has just written a book about "Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships." What a title huh? I love that use of "evolution" - genius! The main gist of the argument seems to be "love is a powerful force, wouldn't offering humans opportunities for unfettered, uncomplicated love make the world a better place." For a guy who's working on computer technologies for his PhD this is a pretty simplistic reduction of the issues. Luckily, Salon's Machinist asks some better questions, like:
"is getting a robot built to order like ordering up a hooker to your hotel room?"
- perhaps, though the "refund if not satisfied" policy is certainly easier to administer with the robot.
"is a perfect love really love at all, even if it feels like it? Isn't love, like all life, by definition complicated; if you're loving a robot, are you really loving -- are you really living? -- or is the whole thing a simulation, like a very real video game?"
- Well, maybe, but if you extrapolate this idea far enough you could argue that life itself is just a very real video game (RIP Baudrillard, you crazy mother-ucker). If love, or any human experience for that matter, needs to be “real” (ie. Involving other humans) where does that leave the countless things we do that don’t involve other humans? Time on Facebook – not real; time watching the Sopranos/the Conchords/the Boosh – not real. Time reading enormous fabulist book about history of modernity – NOT REAL. The large part of my life is spent in the not real. And the part that is real is usual populated with the most frustrating individuals known to man, woman or bot.
Another thing, what if you fell in love with someone but didn’t spend anytime with their real body? What if you loved them via one remove of reality? What if your love was mediated in some way – like say for instance the way I love Brendan Fraser, locked in time just like he was in Encino Man. How is my loving Brendan Fraser circa 1993 any different from my loving a robot-o-boy?
And on that point about the video game simulation–if you're "just practicing" with the robot-beau then are you also “just practicing” when you treat someone in a less that wonderfully-human-being-ish way (i.e. a one night stand, a booty call, etc.).
Now having backed myself into this particular postmodern corner I’m thinking about the flip side. One thing not mentioned here is the question of embodiment. More than some half-baked idea about “real love” (i.e. fights, bad sex, imperfections, annoying habits) versus simulated perfect robot love (i.e. order up your ideal mate and wait for delivery) is the real sticking point: hard bodies; or soft bodies; or whatever. Bodies count. Salon’s Machinist asks: “Doesn't mortality deepen love -- isn't the preciousness of your love, its susceptibility to diseases and deprivation, part of what makes the feeling so wonderful? Could you love a thing that didn't die?”
The answer to that last question is certainly yes. Plenty of things. But that’s not my point here. More than plain old mortality, the thing that puts the kick in love has got to be the body. Bodies are, after all, the one site of distinction between “friendship” love and “ba-da-bing” love. When bodies get involved things get complicated. Human bodies are like litmus paper, they put emotions to the test; they’re surefire indicators of attraction, repulsion, pleasure, pain. If a robot boyfriend turns up on my doorstep, sure, I know he’s been programmed to love just the stuff I love, but then, who hasn’t? Most of the time, if you’re fishing in the right pond, culture has done all that programming for you, right? So the bigger question is, how would you deal with the notion that your Robo-hunk had no innate hardwiring connecting his emotional CPU with his chiselled Robo-hunk exterior? So, yeah, I still working on that... But there is one thing I’m excited about – we’d both love Kraftwerk, that’s for sure.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Wouldn't It Be Nice?
It’s dangerous this time spent admiring new sneakers, newly returned to the world of hustle and bustle and wireless internet connections that practically dance in comparison to that snoring bandwidth they put up with in the country. Aaah, country mice your world is lovely and green but so slow and the coffee so varied in quality! So while there are things that really ought to be done, better to take solace in the broadband and the stereo and the left-over booze happily discovered upon inspecting the cupboards. Which brings me to my subject for today – Pet Sounds. Spent last week uming and aahing about lashing out on a ticket to Brian Wilson perform Pet Sounds at the Opera House. Decided instead it might just be better to sit like all the other plebs in the Domain and listen to the free concert. I don’t have a date, after all, so the notion of all those old boomers settling in all comfy like to see the show and relive their youth is not quite so funny if you don’t have someone there to giggle with.
And yet, now listening to the album here at home on the stereo I’m thinking maybe I made the wrong decision. When people talk about concept albums I mostly roll my eyes – the concept of the concept album should only be treated with the most sincerest form of irony. Pet Sounds though, man, it just captures all these wonderful things – mostly teenage longing – in the most poetic and gorgeous and sweetly cute ways and yet it’s not at all saccharine. I’ve not really had many of those cheesy “this song is talking to ME” type moments, and certainly not with the Beach Boys, but recently I found myself listening to certain parts of the BB oeuvre in a different light. “Wouldn’t it be nice?” for instance – a song that’s really about teen passion and the forbidden – hideously ruined thanks to the Cadbury-Schweppes corp. Wouldn’t it be nice? Hell, yes. It certainly would – I’d love to for you to spend the night. “Don’t talk, put your head on my shoulder” Fine with me, Bri. I like the way you know just the right thing to say. And you’re saying just exactly what I’m thinking. Let me quote for a moment: “Being here with you feels so right/We could live forever tonight/Lets not think about tomorrow/And don't talk put your head on my shoulder”
There’s an awful lot on this album about the threat of tomorrow and how things are going to be very different when the sun comes up which appeals to the hopeless doomed romantic in me. And I might add, the cynical realist. Things *sure* will be different. Make no mistake – doesn’t matter if it’s the oppressive rule of parents or the hangover or the impending doom of real life.
And of course, I have to own up to a particular sympathy for “Caroline No” since the lovely lady in question has cut her hair and appears to have lost that lovin’ feeling:
“Could I ever find in you again/Things that made me love you so much then/Could we ever bring 'em back once they have gone/Oh, Caroline no”
Ouch, my heart is breaking all over again. Caroline, no. But, oops, too late! Caroline could we? But no! But yes! And yet, still, achingly, no. Life is just one bittersweet accident after another.
No question, Pet Sounds is the album for hopeless romantics, heartbroken beaus, and lustful honeybunnies. I think I should’ve done the washing up and typed those job applications... I’m now a breathless wreck of teenage passion.
If you see me in the Domain in January next year I suggest you either steer clear or be prepared for some pretty frantic back row necking.
And yet, now listening to the album here at home on the stereo I’m thinking maybe I made the wrong decision. When people talk about concept albums I mostly roll my eyes – the concept of the concept album should only be treated with the most sincerest form of irony. Pet Sounds though, man, it just captures all these wonderful things – mostly teenage longing – in the most poetic and gorgeous and sweetly cute ways and yet it’s not at all saccharine. I’ve not really had many of those cheesy “this song is talking to ME” type moments, and certainly not with the Beach Boys, but recently I found myself listening to certain parts of the BB oeuvre in a different light. “Wouldn’t it be nice?” for instance – a song that’s really about teen passion and the forbidden – hideously ruined thanks to the Cadbury-Schweppes corp. Wouldn’t it be nice? Hell, yes. It certainly would – I’d love to for you to spend the night. “Don’t talk, put your head on my shoulder” Fine with me, Bri. I like the way you know just the right thing to say. And you’re saying just exactly what I’m thinking. Let me quote for a moment: “Being here with you feels so right/We could live forever tonight/Lets not think about tomorrow/And don't talk put your head on my shoulder”
There’s an awful lot on this album about the threat of tomorrow and how things are going to be very different when the sun comes up which appeals to the hopeless doomed romantic in me. And I might add, the cynical realist. Things *sure* will be different. Make no mistake – doesn’t matter if it’s the oppressive rule of parents or the hangover or the impending doom of real life.
And of course, I have to own up to a particular sympathy for “Caroline No” since the lovely lady in question has cut her hair and appears to have lost that lovin’ feeling:
“Could I ever find in you again/Things that made me love you so much then/Could we ever bring 'em back once they have gone/Oh, Caroline no”
Ouch, my heart is breaking all over again. Caroline, no. But, oops, too late! Caroline could we? But no! But yes! And yet, still, achingly, no. Life is just one bittersweet accident after another.
No question, Pet Sounds is the album for hopeless romantics, heartbroken beaus, and lustful honeybunnies. I think I should’ve done the washing up and typed those job applications... I’m now a breathless wreck of teenage passion.
If you see me in the Domain in January next year I suggest you either steer clear or be prepared for some pretty frantic back row necking.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Oh Cruelty, thy name is Australia Post!
It's typical right? The day that I'm due to leave Sydney Australia Post pops one of those infuriating parcel collection notices in my letter box - thus, my new shoes and I will be apart ALL WEEKEND.
In better news, not only have I been delighting in the splendour of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm but I think I may finally have just the kind of person who would appreciate me for who I am. Petty, selfish, small-minded. I get this feeling like Larry understands. In fact, I rather fancy the idea that he could be my foster Dad. I like to think about some cheesy 80s TV show involving Larry and me, kinda like Punky Brewster. Except that we'd say "fuck" and "cunt" a lot and we'd sit around bitching and moaning about tuna-fish sandwiches and whether or not its ok to leave the hairdresser without leaving a tip. I see me as an older Maebe Funke and him as a nasty, grumpy, less-waspy Mr Drummond. I see us pitching it to HBO...
I don't see them buying it.
Me on the other hand, I can't stop buying things. Three days in the country - will I survive without eBay, Facebook and Salon? One thing is for sure: I'm taking Pynchon to get me through.
In better news, not only have I been delighting in the splendour of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm but I think I may finally have just the kind of person who would appreciate me for who I am. Petty, selfish, small-minded. I get this feeling like Larry understands. In fact, I rather fancy the idea that he could be my foster Dad. I like to think about some cheesy 80s TV show involving Larry and me, kinda like Punky Brewster. Except that we'd say "fuck" and "cunt" a lot and we'd sit around bitching and moaning about tuna-fish sandwiches and whether or not its ok to leave the hairdresser without leaving a tip. I see me as an older Maebe Funke and him as a nasty, grumpy, less-waspy Mr Drummond. I see us pitching it to HBO...
I don't see them buying it.
Me on the other hand, I can't stop buying things. Three days in the country - will I survive without eBay, Facebook and Salon? One thing is for sure: I'm taking Pynchon to get me through.
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