ROBOT strippers will make their debut pole-dancing alongside their human counterparts in a French nightclub.
Laurent Roue, owner of the Strip Club Café in Nantes, said punters might find the gyrating plastic-and-metal robots “very sexy”.
British artist Giles Walker poses next to his pole-dancing robot during its installation in the Strip Club Cafe in Nantes, FranceCredit: Reuters
No threat: with their CCTV heads, the machines are not seen as a threat to the real versions
No threat: with their CCTV heads, the machines are not seen as a threat to the real versionsCredit: Reuters
The robots won’t replace the club’s 10 real dancers, who are to perform alongside the metal newcomers
The robots won’t replace the club’s 10 real dancers, who are to perform alongside the metal newcomersCredit: Reuters
However, he told Euro News that the mechanical strippers – used to celebrate the venue’s fifth anniversary – would never replace the real thing.
And given that they feature scrap material and old CCTV cameras, while teetering on high heels, that’s probably no surprise.
But, Roue said that men attending the joint robot-human stripper show might find the mechanical versions “very sexy – to each his own”.
They were designed by British artist Giles Walker, who told the broadcaster his robots were created to “play with the notion of voyeurism”.
He said the strippers – made out of plastic bits of female mannequins and metal vehicle parts – gave rise to the question of “who has the power between the voyeur and the observed person?”
We’re not in a vulgar job. It’s an artistic job. It’s something that’s beautiful, and robots won’t change that.
Lexi, Dancer
Roue told news agency Reuters: “For us, it’s a wink, a homage in a way to robotics.”
Acknowledging it was an unlikely sector for robots to be used in, he added: “We need something human, warmth, physical contact, and this is really putting together opposites.”
He said the robots would not replace the club’s ten real dancers, who would perform alongside the newcomers.
One of the dancers at SC-Club, Lexi, 23, said she didn’t fear losing her job to the metal-and-plastic pole-dancers.
She said: “They won’t really change our sector.
“It’s something beautiful [stripping], and robots won’t change that.”
According to his website, Walker has been building sculpture for about three decades, using materials found in scrapyards while travelling around Europe.
It adds that, “in the mid-nineties he introduced basic motors into his sculptures and his work became kinetic”.
Walker “plays with the relationship between technology and the human being and the ever dissolving boundary that separates man from machine.
“His ‘machines’ often allude to the underbelly of the human obsession with increased technology….the displaced and redundant.”
Via The Sun.UK
