“Can’t Help Myself”: A Robot that Sweeps Blood-like Fluid…

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s “Can’t Help Myself” examines our increasingly automated global reality in the 21st Century. 🎨

When ‘Modern Contemporary Art’ 🎨 intersects with ‘Automation Technology’ some of the most profound and provocative ideologies come into play.

The art installation by Sun Yuan & Peng Yu is just one of the best examples.

This robotic arm is engaged in a singular, repetitive task: Shoveling a thick viscous liquid that can’t help spreading outward.

Upon first glance the machine seems to take on a life of its own, dancing and shaking as the robotic arm moves all around to retrieve the escaping liquid.

Constructed of a Kuka industrial robot arm, ‘Can’t Help Myself’ is programmed to do one thing: contain a viscous, deep-red liquid 🔴 within a fixed area.

When the blood-like substance pools too much, this activates the robot’s sensors causing the arm to swivel, flex, and shovel the liquid back to the center, leaving splashes and streaks in its wake. This process results in more trails on the floor and splashes on the wall that make it look more like a crime scene than a work of art.

To further animate the machine, it is cordoned off from the rest of the gallery using transparent acrylic partitions that give the illusion of a caged animal in distress. The display turns viewers into voyeurs or empaths or both.

In this case, who is more vulnerable: the human who built the machine; or the machine who is controlled by a human?

Then there is the Sisyphean hypothesis related to migration and sovereignty, especially under an authoritarian government rule. More specifically, the robot’s ‘blood’ shed is likened to the violence that comes from guarding border zones. Over time, the machine leaves stains on the floor, suggesting a landscape tarnished by violence. The machine, one might say, is marking its territory.

Territory is abstract, in a way. Territory is about our current political reality. People are fighting over territories in order to protect or defend — or fighting for more territory. So, this work is connecting these ideas of place and territory and boundaries.

Remember, the artwork is sanctioned off, and the liquid itself is unable to stray…

As our dependence on technology grows, so do the feelings of “pleasure and panic” surrounding it. While it has brought so much information and innovation, it’s scary to know that it can’t be stopped.

‘Can’t Help Myself’ taps into this fear and heightens it through human mimicry. On another level, it connects us to the idea that we can work in tandem with technology instead of being taken over by it.

Thank You for Reading! 🌟