Well, this is my luck! I’m back from the Venice Biennale and have just read emails urging me to go and see the Welsh Pavilion. So I missed this:

[Paul Granjon and the Sexed Robots]

Paul Granjon‘s Robotarium is a sort of robot zoo inhabited by three automatons. The two big robots are “sexed” aluminium carapaces constructed around industrialised white nylon genitals. The only purpose of the male and female robots is to mate with the other.

Then there’s a small and solitary creature that lives in the Robotarium. The Smartbotis a simple and not-so-smart robot that lives on a table fitted with a low border. It moves in a straight line until it hits the border. Then it blinks and says either “Shit” or “Merde” or “Fuck” before resuming its hopeless exploration.

[the Smartbot]

After a few minutes it stops and cries luminous tears. Crying done it shuts its eyes, goes to sleep for a while, and starts all over again.