Will we consider an opportunity to pick up a free robot in the alley ordinary? Will a treasure-finding dumpster dive to bring home a working ‘person’ who “Still Runs” be years away? Does an image like this painting bother us? Should it? Will it continue to disturb us as we move towards relationships with our appliances and embodied domestic workers? We ought to ask these questions.

The futuristic images of the two paintings in my series “Recycling Day” also look backwards, into our history as humans: We discard people, assuming they are not worth much, as in the case of slaves, immigrants, homeless, disabled, elderly, or born-but-unloved children. Will used embodied Ai robots, set out for the trash truck pickup, like a vacuum that needs a tune up, which the owner cannot be bothered with scheduling, represent a new frontier of how we use and abuse humanity?

Special thanks to Charles Remillard for modeling a robot. To purchase, please visit my online shop.