Some friends at a local software company have started a new podcast about AI and how to use AI in your business. As an artist, I am pretty solidly anti-AI because most generative AI is stealing art and content from creators. I recently had to move my websites to a completely different hosting company because the one I was using was allowing my sites to get bombarded by AI bots scraping and stealing the content and they wanted me to PAY for that extra bandwidth and visitor traffic. Paying for the bots to steal my stuff.
But like I do with a lot of frustrating things that happen in my life, I process it through making art. So, meet MLEM. That business I mentioned before wanted to have a mascot for their new podcast and instead of promoting the kind of AI that steals art, they decided to commission an artist (me!) to make some real art that they could use as images to go with their content.
The paper I chose for covering the box is a handmade lokta paper with a metallic silver surface. I also added a few details with paper which is screenprinted silver on black and a pop of orange inside. I wanted to keep this piece using as much fiber/paper as possible and not metal, which would be an obvious choice to make a robot.
I started with the treads on the base and made a paper tread, filled with rollers made from strips of wool felt. The rivets on the cabinet door are stacked and stitched sequins.
I embedded magnets several place in the robot so that the doors could open and close easily. Here’s one in the inside of the cabinet so you can put something inside. I also added a door to the back and the top of the head so I can get inside to the inner workings because one of the big feature of this little guy was that I wanted to make it posable. So the head pivots, the eyes rotate and the arms can go up and down.
I embroidered a sashiko-style panel for the front with sequins.
The arms are attached just like a jointed teddy bear with elastic and a button inside. So they rotate up and down. I made a cabinet door on the back as well as the front so I could access those bits and adjust the tightness if I needed to.
I made two kumihimo cords to make the cables that attach the head and the body. I happened to have some awesome metallic silver yarn leftover from another project so they are shiny just like the paper. The “ears” are large covered buttons and the antenna on top is a paper straw with a vintage glass button at the top.
I really wanted the eyes to shine so they are made from two bike reflectors with a sequin glued to the front. They pivot so I can make him have different expressions looking up, down or crosseyed.
It was a really fun project to work on! I was inspired by vintage robots from the Jetsons or Forbidden Planet, but I wanted this one to have a small head and big hands to represent the brainless grabbing that many AI bots do. Why is it named MLEM? It’s an acronym for Modern Logic Engaging Marketingbot. And it’s the sound your dog makes trying to get peanut butter off the roof of their mouth, which makes me laugh.
You can see more photos in my Gallery post about this piece.
