[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/EjAoBKagWQA]
Robots have feelings too. We’ve heard their laments, from replicants who want more life to GM line-working drones who ponder suicide. Even R2-D2 had distinctly sad and happy beeps. But before WALL-E courted EVE, no robot had expressed the sensuality that director Chris Cunningham imbues in a Björk-bot in the video for the Icelandic enigma’s achingly beautiful “All Is Full of Love.” He overlays the cherubic face of Björk on a polished white mask. Her robot limbs, innards and nether parts are crafted before our eyes with factory precision, the final touches completed in a flourish — a backward rush of liquid. Today, making this kind of computer animation would be fairly routine, but for Cunningham and his team in 1999, it was a milestone. There’s an uneasy thrill for the viewer when the robot kisses and caresses a lookalike. Cunningham called it “kama sutra meets industrial robotics.” In addition to arms, legs and steel sinew, the lyrics promise that “you’ll be given love, you’ll be taken care of.” Witnessing the embrace, you ache to touch and be touched: if only it were I, robot.