 |
 |
 |
|
sex.bot
by Michael Plescia
Remember cybersex? Is that still happening? I tried it a bit in high school, but even then it just seemed silly and now you never hear anyone talk about it anymore. This was in 1996. We'd just bought our first computer, a Gateway 2000 that came by mail in a box that was painted like a cow. Also in the box was a modem. At a rollicking 2400 baud, I was online from the minute I got home until my mother realized I'd been in the basement for way too long — at the time, America Online charged by the hour.
Via our new modem, the world took on a metallic gleam, and in my mind's eye the people with whom I was chatting were part of a future, bio-perfect genus: titanium skin, Lucite eyes, anime hair. Even at the time, I knew that these people were probably actually paunchy middle-aged men. The fact that that didn't matter was exactly what was so great about it.
These women, like my former chat partners, are fantasies. The fact that they don't actually exist — at least not in the way they appear in these photos — is their greatest appeal. Michael Plescia's artist's statement is filled with questions like, "If androids do indeed dream of electric sheep, will a robot hooker ever need to exfoliate?" His entrancing photography is similarly enigmatic and, in its own HAL-like way, playful. — Will Doig
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
