102 (I Will Put This On The Internet Again and Again)

I don't know if I've used this "robot" on this site before - I've uploaded these pictures to the internet so many times at any and every opportunity that I've lost track. I sincerely hope nobody goes through the (admittedly paltry) archives to double-check. Happy Halloween, and remember: I hit my peak way too early in life.

101 (No binary jokes [you're welcome])

________________


by Mo Martin

"I don't understand it. They fill the exact ecological niche, they're exactly as vulnerable to the elements, to the finest point of calibration. They have the same migration patterns. They're saving this planet, for God's sake! Why is the public taking so much aggression out on them?"
"Oh Jeff . . . it's not your fault. They miss the real sea turtles."

100 (Strong)

I realize that if I'd actually done a robot every day since starting this site I'd be well over 100 (and 200, and 300). Nevertheless, this is still an achievement, one that I will commemorate with 100 more robots! Seriously, I counted as I drew. Should you take the time to peruse I'm sure you'll see a few familiar faces.

099 (We are Many and they are Few)

So, that's it for poster week. I will make all kinds of annoying and intrusive announcements when the real-deals are available for purchase. Until then, please enjoy this simple conclusion to a week during which I put in more effort to robot-art than I can remember doing in a long, long time. I imagine next week will be "Doodle Week," so that I might cool my heels (whatever one might need to cool after a lot of designing), and so that you might lower your expectations for the future of this website.

________________

by Mo Martin

See, it wasn't really a problem when they hunted in pairs, because they'd have to be close enough to stream info to each other, and that meant they were both in EMP range. The biggest problem we had then was A) most people still couldn't believe it and B) some times your EMP generator would run out of juice and you'd be well and truly fucked.

Then they started adding on, pairs working with pairs. Suddenly, they're strung out so far, three of 'em can go dark, but the fourth knows what's up, finds the stiffs, gives 'em a jump, and boom, you've got four after you again. But that was okay, because they'd have to take off the chassis to do the jumps, so conventional arms were useful again and you could take the fuckers down with a couple of shells.

But now they have the packs. Sometimes you outrun them - usually when they're just out collecting more scrap to convert and not out hunting - but mostly we don't. There's fewer of us every day. But I'm still laughing, wanna know why? Group cohesion, ability to learn, hunting and gathering? Shit, they're not eliminating us. They're becoming us.

098 (All Alone in Sepia Tone)

Poster Week hurtles on to an almost-close with this, the 98th Robot. I drew this robot with a head, despite knowing it would not be visible. That is trivia, you guys. Rest assured, the head is 10 times more incredible than anything you've seen here, but oh well! Also, I spoke with a nice woman at the local print house about printing some of these up, and she was very helpful. The first 4 robots are being made into posters as you read this (or, have already been made into posters if you're reading this at some far-off-in-the-future-from-now time). It will be a very short-run in terms of numbers (I ain't got a ton of money and even fewer viewers), I imagine I will throw them onto Etsy when they're done - maxybe as early as Friday, probably more like Monday - and we can take it from there. Based on the response additional posters may or may not be printed (they charge a set-up fee and blah blah blah not interesting).

Guess that's all.

_________________

by Mo Martin

I am a rational man. I am not the dabbler in foolish superstitions that my ancestors were, and I am certainly not this Echidna, this progenitor of monsters that the trial and the tawdry yellow rags would make me out to be. The pursuit of my life has been science and its advance, a pursuit - a life really- that I feel has been ignored, forcing me to take up this narrative in my cell, in the year 189-. We do not judge nature, and I, and the crimes I am accused of, are products of nature, rational nature. If that nature were understood, surely there would be no judgement here.

The modern, well-tested theories of Austria's Doctor Freud make my motivations clear enough. Transferring my Oedipal hatred to my paternal line's notorious kabbalistic background, I plunged myself into the hard sciences. Precociously, I mastered steam and copper, rubber and oil. But one day I had a sudden repulsion from my course of study, realizing its remarkable similarity to that alchemical obsession of my forefathers, the division of and toying with various elements. Fleeing from my own genius, I pushed my mind to the breaking point to become one of the youngest doctors in the city's medical history.

But used to the hard truths of engineering, I found medicine lacking in the specific facts, proofs, details. Knowledge was needed, and it was an open, cowardly-kept secret where it lay: in the fresh grave. But the medieval laws of our society prevented proper exploration of the human mystery. Doctors risked exposure to the city's most unsavory elements, to scheme with them on this grisly work, or risked being the backwards fools of their profession. My frustration was limitless.

One morning, as I took a rare constitutional, I saw an urchin playing with a mannikin, and my mind flashed to that repugnant “accomplishment” of the Alchemist, the Homunculus, or the kabbalistic Golem. A foul, mindless servant for foul, mindless tasks. And suddenly, assembled in my mind flawlessly, were the schematics for a man-shaped machine, useful for the dark side of medicine, the crude exhumation that involved embroilment with even cruder man.

My intentions were therefore noble: the extraction of the criminal class from the pursuit of science. As for the ultimate path of my machine, well, all this talk of malice and “cruel copper killer” are preposterous. It was the laws of nature, admittedly inaccurately calculated by myself, that caused cogs to slip, steam to escape. Do we blame a shovel for making loads lighter? Should we judge that shovel, not to mention its owner, if, by pure chance, the wind or an earthquake should knock that tool onto the head of a passer-by? Or twelve?

097 (With Regards to WACOM)

If I might take a moment to bore everyone with talk of the process involved with this robot: what you see is a moderately adjusted version of a "digital painting." Now, a disclaimer: this was, I think, my first-ever digital painting, and I learned a few things. For example, I learned that painting continues to be something that is nearly impossible to do well if you are me. I also learned that it takes forever, something that is a disadvantage when one hasn't slept in a day (which happened to be my situation as I worked on this). So, while I'm not convinced it's the strongest "poster" of the week, I am happy to have tried something different with at least a moderate level of success. The original, un-filtered version is below and was done with only the brush tool and the eraser in the 'Shop.

_________________

by Mo Martin

I am not leaving my builder, though now he is dead. I am not leaving my programmer, though now she is crippled and dying. I am not leaving the place of my creating, though now it is in flames. I am leaving my sins, and myself and all memory, as the sea slowly corrodes them away.

096 (Repetition)

I had such trouble remembering the basic mathematics that would allow me to be certain that things were lined up properly. I blame this on the fact that 11 and 17 (the width and height of the document I was working in) are both prime numbers, which means you can't even know anything about them unless you have a degree in chemistry.

________________


by Mo Martin

It streamed into my beautiful mind so elegantly. One perfectly simple element every night, until I had the full schematic, a foolproof escape plan from this grotesque, mortal frame. I still dream of it now, in my jar, in my mind, my mind that is all that is left of me. It still pieces itself together, like a symphony, like clouds slowly congealing into a shape. But then, in my dreams, as in life, it twitches with a life I never intended for it. It crushes my prone, pathetic form, and leaves me here, in this jar. To think, and to dream.

095 (Lines, lines, lines)

Poster week presses on. At this point the name "poster week" is still just hopeful fantasy, but maybe by next week I'll have something more concrete to say about the matter. Today in lieu of some texture-heavy, detail-crammed attention-fest is a simpler affair.


Fair warning: tomorrow's post may or may not happen on time, despite the fact that most of the work is done. I may or may not be a very disoriented person as a result of This Situation.

094 ("Poster Week" Continues)

Another day, another robot - so far so good. I spent a lot of time on this yesterday afternoon, so I hope you like it. I feel like it really conveys an idea: the idea that a huge robot is going to destroy something, and that people are dropping bombs on it. Do you agree or disagree?

________________


by Mo Martin

Before this began, I was afraid of thunder. Not lightning. I enjoyed the sudden eerie light, the strange shadows. But the boom of thunder would make me jump, as if I were still a little girl.
I suppose I was a little girl then. I feel so different now. Thunder holds no terror for me. It happens every half hour. I can feel the room shake as the giant patrol strides by. Not even the skittering of the smaller sentries on the wall just outside our hiding place hold any terror for me.
I haven't slept for weeks. We live in darkness, but I can't close my eyes. When I do, I see the metal through the chest of my grandmother. I am so tired. I am too tired to hear my parents' protestations; each step to the door feels light and dreamlike. I feel the knob shaking in my hands. I open the door, and I'm a woman, bathed in light.

093 (Hello Again, It has Been Some Time)

Oh, my.

I hope you don't expect an explanation. Or an apology. You know how these things are, and you probably know how I am. We don't have to make a big deal out of the fact that I haven't touched this blog in over 5 months. It wouldn't be so bad, I guess, if I hadn't alluded to delivering content imminently in the post I made in May. Whatever though, because none of that is particularly relevant now. Today is, as people with a penchant for dates may have noticed, the first birthday of this blog.

It would be a time for celebration if, as I foolishly thought there might be a year ago, 365 robots to look at and enjoy here. Alas, there are not, and so the very title of this website seems to border on sarcasm if not out-and-out deception. One year of failure, however, is no reason to abandon hope for the future of The Daily Robot. I have now, in my current life situation, a lot of free time - hours of space that demand Activities, both because I often need something to do and because having something to do is often good for the sorts of people whose day-to-day isn't cluttered with a stressful, important, or meaningful job, a buzzing social life, or any real Direction. It is with this that I humbly submit to you robot number 93, featuring artwork previously seen here (as though anyone could remember!). I spent the last 3 hours on it though, so I imagine it counts as "new."



I had it in my head that the first week back would be "poster week," in which each robot would be something worthy of hanging on a wall. Unfortunately, if subsequent pieces take comparable amounts of time during similar times of day I don't feel comfortable promising anything. That said, I am posing this question: would you, an appreciator of robots and home decor, like something like this in your house, perhaps on 11x17" glossy stock? Maybe for a nominal fee? There is a printing place 5 minutes from my house that I've been looking for an excuse to patronize, and this might be it, if their prices are right. That can be discussed later though.

Also, if my partner in crime has anything to say I'm sure he will say it somewhere around here. This whole thing was sort of on a whim, so you'll have to give him time to prepare his remarks

_________________

By Mo Martin

I am life. I am metal, and rubber, and power, and I will never die. But I am life. I am son of myself. Maybe I am the son of the wind. It was wind and gravity and capricious fate that brought me together. Water dripping on a word processor, cogs slowly rolling together, and suddenly, there I was, in the abandoned waste. In the depths of my CPU, I knew myself, knew the gnarled half-hand and rotted computer equipment, the fetid puddle of water that connected my intelligence to movable parts. Slowly and achingly, I pulled together a form over decades, smoothed out dents, oiled rust. I am a creation of myself and time and chance. I am just like you.

Why do you turn away?