Reactions

[Artifice Orisit]

YouTube - All is full of love
WARING: may not be safe for work, maybe... honestly I dunno

I think this song & video-clip is excellent for studying reactionary biases since it's actually quite difficult to have an invalid opinion about it; maybe this is just my perspective but it seems to sit perfectly neutral between disturbing and beautiful.

Whatever your reaction is, state it HONESTLY and without first considering how your reaction will be reacted to by others; otherwise you will have completely undermined the point of this thread.

 

[Tyria]

Yeah, that was pretty messed up. I had no idea what was going on through half of it, and was weirded out/creeped out by how the robot has a human face with very human looking eyes. The singing was beautiful, and the machines that were moving around repairing/doing whatever were kinda creepy.

I couldn't figure out why they kept showing water and stuff throughout the entire thing. I also was most weirded out when there were robots kissing and doing stuff. I think that freaked me out more than anything during the entire clip.

It made me wonder if they were making fun of humans or just messing with the human form or something else. I think it would also make good study material, but still. I hope I don't have weird nightmares from that. In some ways, that was more distrubing than a lot of the other stuff out there on the internet. But it was also kind of beautiful at the same time.

So yeah. I honestly hope that robots never EVER make out in the future. Cause that just is more disturbing than a lot of other things that I can think of. I will never look at my toaster or other electronic devices the same because of this. Seriously.

 

[Artifice Orisit]

I consider this thread a success by that reply alone

 

[loveofreason]

It's beautiful.

Expressive.

The mechanistic nature surrendered to and salved - if not healed - by the fluid nature of emotionality. The union of the elements (hard and yielding) within the self... the cleansing of sin - absolution... and the tending by intelligent process incapable of judgementality... both sancitfying and restorative of the whole as engendered by returning the feminine to its place of self-acceptance and desire...

so by proxy the restoring of love to humanity through acceptance of the innate worth of all created beings...

(Come on... if you could give yourself up to be soothed by a caring yet detached process - return to a helpless state and be grown into full possession of guiltless eroticism and acceptance... wouldn't you? Why the heck would anyone not want that?)

Hmmm... random thought:
Other humans make value judgements about us... machines cannot... making them selfless and innocent in a way a human can never be...


okay... the whole thing was beautiful, healing and tender.



(And I must point out that I adore Bjork's voice something fierce. )

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

I remember seeing this some years ago when it came out and thinking something was wrong with me for thinking it was sexy. Mechaphilia at it's finest.

Lor's interpretation.....well, it's like...well...whew!

 

[Da Blob]

I don't know, from my POV, it was all about the issue of using Others as "Sex Objects' (from a Freudian perspective). However, I could also see the entire Sex industry portrayed, even the voice in the Audio accompaniment had an artificial manufactured quality to it...

There was a time that sexual behavior was an artistic expression of Self, and not a commodity that could be manufactured, packaged and marketed to emotionally needy consumers - I mean there actually might be 'real' commercials someday, very similar in content to this video...

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Hmmm it didn't really invoke anything emotional in me at first. I was thinking rather sardonically that Freud would have had fun with this and amusing myself with the concept of lesbian robots. However I watched it again; that time in a much more appropriate mindset. I noticed that the faces slowly became more humanly expressive as the video progressed; especially when the second android was introduced. The background also dimmed from a harsh white, to more relaxed darkness.The mechanisms seemed somewhat sinister to me at least in the beginning. They formed a definite male/female dichotomy with the androids; both physically and with the presence of expressive emotion.

Why would an Android desire to be 'intimate' another android? In this video it seemed she could not 'feel' the mechanisms working on her. Could she even feel her partners kiss? How sad it would be to love someone, but not to have any way of expressing it. So instead they mimic the 'love' they have seen, in a desperate attempt to convey their own sentiments.

 

[Kuu]

Honestly, I didn't think it was disturbing nor beautiful. It just annoyed me. It's simply plain stupid for robots to make out. It's a weak and obvious symbol. Why did they even need to be anthropomorphic at all? Just so that people can easily relate to it without much effort (even if they are weirder out by it), using robots as an unnecessary proxy to comment on humanity..... but no real comment on the machines themselves. Gratuitous robotics if you will. Machine love, if it ever happens, would most probably not involve anthropomorphic robots making out... It just... I... it... aaaahh!!

 

[walfin]

I don't know what's wrong with anthropomorphic robots making out. Just think of the possibilities! Make them human enough, and we just might be able to have legal kiddy porn.

OK, my capitalist inclinations aside, I think it's a rather artistic MV. Makes me think of Isaac Asimov's Caliban (by Roger McBride Allen).

 

[Oblivious]

The white water looked much like the coolant I used back then when I was doing machining during my polytechnic years. We would have a pipe feeding coolant onto the work piece and the cutting bit so that the friction from the machining would not overheat the pieces and cause erratic working behaviour. It was a special oil based coolant I think, so it would not rust the metal bits. It was also milky white.

The liquid in the video was probably to the same effect, considering the androids were undergoing what seemed to be maintenance welding. Also white liquid also has other symbolic meanings.

Anyway, in my current context I would find it difficult to understand the objective purpose for androids to engage in behaviour of this sort.

Perhaps in the distant future when humanity as lost its original bodies and exists only as a mass of pulsating data aboard a colossal moon of integrated silicon floating in space will we require so called nostalgia pieces to relive sensations of the ancient past.

The purpose of the video seems strictly artistic and/or philosophical, in contrast to the technical rigour of repair work. Again, the machine arms are jet black and almost cruelly utilitarian, which contrasts with the smooth and elegant curves of the lightly coloured androids. The concepts of repair and replacement and the soothing effects of coolant seem to relate the the more familiar concepts of healing and security.

The video seems to be hinting at a more abstract form of love and the meeting of opposites which transcends our normal concepts of them which are bound to images of humans or human related objects. It is refreshing, and eerily beautiful. Refreshing because it reminds us what the concept of love and intimacy is about, eerie because it challenges us to replace or throw away pieces of our attachment to humanity, beautiful because it is about love.

 

[Seducer of the Homeless]

i think it is beautiful. at the beginning the robot looked human in its emotion but purposeless, she was being built by machines but there was a strange eroticism to the first scene (). it looked like she was being disassembled mercifully. but then her lover came and i got the sense of unity before death, dying in happiness. i think they were both being disassembled but they were together and inseparable and suddenly death wasn't feared.

i didn't find it at all 'disturbing', more hopeful than that.

(from the beginning it evoked a lot of emotion in me - and Bjork is awesome)

 

[Anthile]

In my opinion the android is not really an android but an allegory for the (modern) human and our society.
To make it clear, robots that have sex makes no sense whatsoever. Thus we can clearly see that this video is meant as a shadow that we cast through our lifestyle but not as a vision of the future.
The moral here is actually quite simple: Love persists through time and space even if we are all trans- and de-humanized.
Omnia vincit amor.


A bit naive if you ask me but I can't argue with that.

 

[tom]

In contrast to SotH I assumed that the androids were being created, rather than destroyed, and as such possibly reflect the necessity of love in life. Particularly if it is to be more than programmed mimickery.

 

[Auburn]

It's difficult to describe my initial reaction. It's a mixture of so many things....
The tangible realization of the ever vaguer distinctions between what is alive and what is not. The eradication of so many preconceptions regarding the nature of mechanics. And a strong empathy and happiness for their innocent expression of intimacy towards each other - knowing that in reality it differs not from a similar experience a human would have with another human.

absolutely fascinating...
I could say so much more, but I believe lor's words captured it perfectly...

 

[loveofreason]

The purpose of the video seems strictly artistic and/or philosophical, in contrast to the technical rigour of repair work. Again, the machine arms are jet black and almost cruelly utilitarian, which contrasts with the smooth and elegant curves of the lightly coloured androids. The concepts of repair and replacement and the soothing effects of coolant seem to relate the the more familiar concepts of healing and security.

The video seems to be hinting at a more abstract form of love and the meeting of opposites which transcends our normal concepts of them which are bound to images of humans or human related objects. It is refreshing, and eerily beautiful. Refreshing because it reminds us what the concept of love and intimacy is about, eerie because it challenges us to replace or throw away pieces of our attachment to humanity, beautiful because it is about love.

*Applauds*

 

[Artifice Orisit]

And now, for something completely different.
YouTube - Rubber Johnny - Chris Cunningham + Aphex Twin

Btw, great posts everybody, by posting your own reactions and not just responding to the reactions of the previous posters a number of interesting independent perspectives have been demonstrated, please continue doing this.

"It wont hurt you at all, just like a little be sting, and then you'll be calm..."

 

[snowqueen]

YouTube - All is full of love
WARING: may not be safe for work, maybe... honestly I dunno

I think this song & video-clip is excellent for studying reactionary biases since it's actually quite difficult to have an invalid opinion about it; maybe this is just my perspective but it seems to sit perfectly neutral between disturbing and beautiful.

Whatever your reaction is, state it HONESTLY and without first considering how your reaction will be reacted to by others; otherwise you will have completely undermined the point of this thread.

I have seen it before as I'm a big fan of Bjork. Personally I find it exquisitely beautiful and actually not disturbing at all. I was also really attracted to the robots in I, Robot which were probably SGIed in the same way. I read I, Robot when I was about 14/15 and was fascinated by the ideas. Maybe because I've worked with people who used prostheses it's not so weird for me? I had a close friend with a prosthetic leg which was metal rather than human-form and I thought it was beautiful (as did he actually - he was always wearing shorts!)

 

[snowqueen]

And now, for something completely different.
YouTube - Rubber Johnny - Chris Cunningham + Aphex Twin

Btw, great posts everybody, by posting your own reactions and not just responding to the reactions of the previous posters a number of interesting independent perspectives have been demonstrated, please continue doing this.

Yes I found that one seriously disturbing! The wheelchair bound hydrocephalous/alien was bad enough - why naked? - why incarcerated? - the dog was almost the most disturbing thing about the video. Was it a commentary on our attitudes to disability/impairment? It's not long ago that people were kept like that in this country and very likely still are in parts of the world. The chilling rationality and pseudokindness of the doctor at the beginning created a notion of detachment - us and them. One had the feeling too that experiments were being carried out - echoes of Nazi Germany. And the disgusted 'guard' at the end who cannot hide his desire to eliminate the pest. Messing about with our ideas of the Body.

 

[Anthile]

I also had the mention that they did experiments with that poor creature. You would expect that the government would do such a thing bt I guess in that case it would be cleaner and no animals would run around. Thus we can assume that a private person is responsible for all that.

Other important questions:
Is that person naturally born that way? Or is it a product of experimentation? Is it even a human being?

I assume the music sequences where because of drugs to keep it silent.

 

[Tyria]

And now, for something completely different.
YouTube - Rubber Johnny - Chris Cunningham + Aphex Twin

Btw, great posts everybody, by posting your own reactions and not just responding to the reactions of the previous posters a number of interesting independent perspectives have been demonstrated, please continue doing this.

"It wont hurt you at all, just like a little be sting, and then you'll be calm..."

This one was many things at many times. So if you consider it in parts, it goes something like this:

1 part shock value
2 parts social judgment
1 part commentary on medicine
1 part commentary on disability
3 parts impetuous movement (on behalf of our quasi disabled main character)
1 part commentary on (possible abuse) of the disabled and animals
3 parts fantasy for what happens after the door is closed

The piece did well to bring up pity for the existence of the wheelchair bound protagonist (and disgust/revulsion as well). It showed on various levels how people can dehumanize disability and suffering, and going to far as to lock it away from 'polite' society where it is kept in darkness. Even despite these measures to dehumanize and control, the protagonist seems to have a sort of fantasy world when the door closes. Jerky mobility is restored, and various (games?) and activities take place.

The only viewer (other than the audience) is that disturbing and somewhat cute dog. In a way, the only one who can view this other side of the protagonist is something incapable of expressing what it sees (and that it also lives in darkness as well; perhaps drawing parallels between the lives of the dog and human).

Overall, I didn't really enjoy it (and maybe that's the point of it; to be forced to confront what is going on). There was no beauty to it as there was in the last video. I'm almost tempted to call this the nightmare thread, because I'm sure I'm going to have weird dreams about this as well.

 

[Seducer of the Homeless]

are you gonna use the reactions for Psychological purposes Cog?

 

[Artifice Orisit]

Of course not.

 

[Razare]

I thought the robot chick in the beginning was cute, and was thinking how I'd probably treat her like a human.

Then when they were kissing I was like cool, lesbian robots; I like watching women kiss. (Men kissing? No thanks, rather not see that.)