The Fembot Mystique: Sex-and-tech writer Annalee Newitz explores the pop-culture fascination with female robots. Intro: >>Fembots were a pop-culture staple long before Austin Powers battled them--witness the popularity of The Bionic Woman, The Stepford Wives and Blade Runner. But what is it about curvaceous cyborgs that stirs the imagination? To some, fembots represent the perfect male fantasy: They're sexy and submissive and have more techie features than the Xbox 360. But they also have a dangerous side that can reduce walls to rubble and make an army retreat. Perhaps the fembot's allure resides in her ability to walk the line between total obedience and unfathomable power. Feminist science-fiction writer Amy Thomson, author of robot-comes-of-age novel Virtual Girl, suggests that the fembot myth is attractive to men because it deals with "a woman you create and control." But tech journalist Daniel Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising, argues that fictional fembots have hardly been portrayed as controllable--in fact, he claims, they're often presented as the most dangerous robots of all, because feelings of attraction to them could leave their victims vulnerable to attack. "A sexy robot that's aggressive could be a wolf in rubberized skin," he says.<< Link
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]
