The pole-dancing robots of CES 2018: An eyewitness report
On Monday, the world's largest strip club — Sapphire Gentleman's Club — became something else: The most subversive art show in Las Vegas.
All week, in Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show takes over the city. CES is the biggest tech trade show of the year — a veritable debutante ball for electronics brands, and whatever they're rolling out to the public (and the press) that year. And yet, this massive mecca of stripping located just off the Las Vegas Strip had somehow become the site of one of the most widely-covered events at this year's CES:
Two pole-dancing robots.
So, of course, we had to go check it out.
When we showed up at Sapphire, we couldn't hide our extreme disappointment. The robot strippers had been banished to the long, dimly lit entryway of the club — not, say, the main stage (as we'd been promised over the phone). We'd been duped. And yet, there was a silver lining around our weird adventure to Sammy Davis Jr. Drive — where Sapphire can be found, a road that runs just parallel to (and right in the shadow of) the massive casinos that light the Vegas sky.
At face-value, the robot strippers weren't much more than a great way to demonstrate how the long tradition of chauvinism at CES isn't going anywhere, anytime soon (to say nothing of the way that CES initially didn't feature any women in its keynote speakers lineup this year, until heavy backlash prompted a turnaround).
But that also goes without pointing out a crucial detail about these sexless, gyrating androids.
The robots were originally created by British artist Giles Walker for a project called Peepshow, as a commentary on the increasing reach of the surveillance state, and to challenge notions about the voyeurism of government-controlled security cameras. The artist explained that he created them as a response to "mechanical Peeping Toms," or CCTVs, being placed around Britain back in 2010 when the robots were constructed.
And yeah, sure: They were robot strippers. They looked ridiculous. Like something out of a Disney World Tomorrowland ride gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Two robots with cameras for heads, gyrating on stripper poles, as one of the most covered spectacles at CES? There's poetry to that.
But they also represented the harshest critique of CES yet — one sharper than any blog post, fire tweet, or scorching hot take could mount. They call into question the increasingly invasive, perverse reach technology (and its corporate architects) keep taking in our lives.
It's been one of the few moments of CES that's not fawning news coverage by wormy journalists taking selfies with interview subjects (and the products those subjects have made). Even though the artwork was inspired by the British surveillance state, it's a pretty convenient criticism of the increasingly invasive nature of corporate tech.
Large corporations regularly abuse users' trust. When we use our favorite gadgets and services, the companies that make them are surveilling our every move, collecting data. Whether you realize it or not, someone is always watching you — and potentially eavesdropping. And two robots with cameras for heads, gyrating on stripper poles, as one of the most covered spectacles at CES? There's poetry to that.
Because if people remember CES 2018 for anything that distinguishes it from the conventions of years past, it'll be for the way big companies got bigger, as they went around announcing partnerships, almost as if on trend.
These partnerships, of course, are designed to only further the increasing reach and scope of multinational conglomerates. They want more — more of your money, more of your data, more influence on your daily life, and the way you go about it.
And if artificial intelligence is, as this year's CES would have you believe, the not-at-all-far-off future, it means that Google and Amazon and Apple are gonna try to put AI in literally everything, everywhere: Your car, your home, your office, your kitchen, your bathroom, and your bedroom.
If CES is a celebration of the year's biggest technology trends, consider the counterculture at Sapphire. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it still gives us a reason to remind ourselves (and you) that tech companies are coming for your data, and will begin logging your daily behavior in a way that never seemed imaginable just a few years ago. And they're doing a great job at distracting you as they do it.
Google, Amazon, Samsung, Microsoft, Intel, and so many others are vying to create elaborate profiles of your preferences, habits, and real-world behaviors to sell you more things. While we embrace so many of these new advancements — willingly, or latently, out of convenience — it's important to remember that companies are logging everything: your searches, locations, online browsing patterns, and much more. Including your fantasies.
The future is here, and it's always watching. Keep your eyes up here