Art and Technology meet

I recently came across a video talking about an interesting art piece. This exhibit was around for years (from 2016 I believe) but I am generally not into art so I never really came across it before.

This is Peng Yu's ‘Can't Help Myself’.

This piece was of an industrial robot arm “caged” in a transparent box for everyone’s view. The robot wasn’t just sitting there though, it was programmed to do some movements like scratching itself or dancing. They were movements that made it seem more human, and of course to endear itself to the viewers.

The main aspect of this art piece is my focus today, because I thought the symbolism was very powerful.

While the robot is moving around, dancing and shaking, it is also trying to keep itself alive; it is continuously trying to retain a thick red liquid, which was hydraulic liquid leaking from within it, from spreading across the floor. The robot would sense as the fluid spreads out too far, and moves in to shovel it back towards its body. At the same time, it kept entertaining the viewers.

The robot kept on doing this until 2019 when it finally “died”. Over time, people were noticing that the robot was slowing down. Tired from the constant struggle for survival, until it couldn’t anymore.

The longer I watched the video of this art piece, the more I was impressed with the symbolism. The name of the piece can suggest many things about what the artist intended to do. Of course, art is often subjective; it could mean many things to different people.

I myself have two opinions of what it was symbolising. Could ‘Can’t Help Myself’ have been telling us that the robot, despite being in a perilous situation itself, couldn’t help but want to entertain the viewers? Or is it that the robot couldn’t help itself and needed help that it was never going to receive from the viewers?

Either takes on the meaning is interesting, as the robot is being a perfect analogue for both modern life and humanity in a general sense.

If my former understanding that the title is suggesting that the robot couldn’t help but entertain the people despite its own peril, then it is analogising modern life and social media. Despite being close to death, by losing the fluid and constantly needing to maintain itself, it was still enthralled by the instant gratification received from those viewing it from the other side of the glass. Doesn’t that resemble the way social media works? There are many people who assume personas on social media, hiding their pain in some cases, just to entertain and receive that captivating drug that is gratification and praise (in the form of likes etc.). A different way to look at this interpretation would be that the robot is stuck in this box that it is in, therefore, despite the peril, it has to continue to entertain, as it was programmed.

My second understanding is that the robot was begging for help as it couldn’t save itself, but no one around was helping. They simply watched, or videoed the robot’s misery with their phones. This reminds me of a micro-story I read recently by Loryne Andawey where she described this very phenomenon (see below)

Furthermore, I read a small article when I wanted to find more information on this art piece, and it mentioned that after the piece was decommissioned, it was revealed that it ran on electricity, and hydraulic fluid was not needed for its operation. I don’t know if that is simply a by-product of the art piece (because I’m sure most people understood that the fluid on the floor was not part of the robot, but part of the art piece), or if the artist intended to do this. The implication of this is that all the effort the robot was making in order to entertain and maintain its life by scooping the hydraulic fluid was simply a waste. It was wasting its time and effort on the wrong thing. That is a powerful message and a cautionary tale for all of us.

This art piece is such a powerful message to humanity, coming from such an unlikely mechanism (pun intended). As I said, I am not a fan of art per se, but I do appreciate the ingenuity of this particular art piece, and I might continue to delve deeper into art to find similar pieces that provoke thoughts.