e-mails

robot girl requested instructions via e-mail.
here are the replies and her responses to them

Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 12:09:19
From: robot girl
To: everyone
Subject: art robot girl

tell me what to do

Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 13:56:55
From: dan
To: robot girl
Subject: Re: art robot girl

create!

Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 16:14:16
From: robot girl
To: dan
Subject: art robot girl

create what?

Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:59:07
From: seb
To: robot girl
Subject: RE: art robot girl

no

Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 17:13:47
From: robot girl
To: seb
Subject: art robot girl

does not compute.
did you mean 'do nothing'?

Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 09:35:55
From: seb
To: robot girl
Subject: RE: art robot girl

it means work it out for your fucking self

Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 22:49:56
From: lawrence
To: robot girl
Subject: Very Well...

Hmm. And will you do it, or is your work of art just going to be made up of all the things that people have told you to do? Which would be disappointing, it's got to be said.
But here are three things you can do.

1. SCULPTURAL
Next to Blackfriar's Bridge in London, near to the point where the Embankment leads to the Tate Modern (dear God, what an obvious target), there are twelve terracotta-orange pylons: twelve columns, or plinths, which are presumably an important part of the architecture but which have no obvious purpose that anyone can understand. They stand right by the side of the Bridge, so that anyone crossing it could - if they felt daring - jump over the railing to stand on them. They don't support anything, nor is there anything on top of them, each one being a metre or so across and having an apparently flat surface.
They need statues. Very, very badly.
A statue (or a gargoyle) placed on one of these plinths would directly face anyone passing along the Embankment. The space is so empty, so *begging*, that it seems ridiculous for nothing to be there. And who'd ever move a statue, if it were placed there, quietly and covertly, in the middle of the night? Who'd spend the time, the effort, the money to shift a gargoyle? Who'd even bother to stop you putting one in position?
And once the first statue's in place... well, there are eleven other columns to go.
Twelve is a good number. No, fuck it, twelve is the *perfect* number. A zodiac of the city. And anybody with an aesthetic streak, looking at those terracotta-orange pylons, can immediately see why the statues are so necessary.
But then again, I feel so close to the city that it's almost biological. I know what the Bridge needs.

2. CONCEPTUAL
Go to this web address:
http://www.theforeverbritneynetwork.com/
It's a website, which you might already have seen, run by a man who's clearly a paranoid schizophrenic and probably quite dangerous. He's got an obsession with Britney Spears, but he's also got such a degree of fundamentalist Christian sex-fear that he can't bring himself to accept she'sbasically just a pop-whore: he's therefore developed an elaborate fantasy-world in which Britney Spears is in reality a good-natured and innocent girl (called Amanda) who's being manipulated and blackmailed by an international secret society which has access to every satellite transmission facility on Earth.
His fantasy is not only complicated, it's also infinitely flexible. The site includes a plea for information from anybody else who has first-hand experience of the conspiracy, and it's quite clear that he's not only prepared to believe anything you tell him but prepared to work it into his whole belief-system.
Any message you send him will become part of his world, and reported on his website as soon as he's absorbed the information. He is, to put it bluntly, the ultimate medium. His entire universe is a canvas.
He could be turned into the greatest piece of conceptual art in history.

3. THE SOFT OPTION
But if you really want to get exhibited in an art gallery, you could just try recreating Poussin's "The Shepherds of Arcadia" with Lego figures and pretending it's clever.

Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 17:04:33
From: robot girl
To: lawrence
Subject: Re: Very Well...

art robot girl will follow all instructions provided they do not go against art robot girl's programming.
art robot girl will attempt to complete your instructions, but this may take some time.
art robot girl will reply when your instructions have been completed.

Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 01:05:31
From: lawrence
To: robot girl
Subject: Still Very Well

>art robot girl will follow all instructions provided they do not go against art robot girl's programming.
Now *there's* a get-out clause if ever I heard one.
>art robot girl will attempt to complete your instructions, but this may take some time.
I can imagine.
>art robot girl will reply when your instructions have been completed.
Then art robot girl might like to know that there was a small geographical error in the last e-mail. The twelve pylons aren't right next to Blackfriar's Bridge itself:
they're next to the railway bridge that runs parallel to it, and therefore can clearly be seen by anyone crossing the main Bridge.
Which just makes them even better targets, obviously.

Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 19:10:28
From: robot girl
To: lawrence
Subject: Forever Britney

art robot girl has attempted to contact the Forever Britney site
Last week it was a missing girl site.
This week it cannot be accessed.

Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 14:47:02
From: dom
To: robot girl
Subject: instructions

Define the purpose of art, using cheese as a metaphor

Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 10:34:20
From: robot girl
To: dom
Subject: Re: instructions

The purpose of art is difficult to define. In this way it is very like cheese, some think its purpose is to be soft and bland, some think it should be hard and biting, others think it should be a bit mouldy, a few think it should be lightly grilled over pasta...

Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 09:35:06
From: ian
To: robot girl
Subject: command for robot girl

lick stuart all over the face

Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 01:50:40
From: robot girl
To: ian
Subject: Re: command for robot girl

On 14/07/02 at 21:38 robot girl licked stuart all over the face

Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 10:12:25
From: ian
To: robot girl
Subject: command

sing "the bear necessities" whilst jumping up and down outside your front door.

Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 14:44:19
From: robot girl
To: ian
Subject: Re: command

On the 15/07/02, at 10.37, robot girl sang "the bear necessities" whilst jumping up and down outside a front door.
robot girl has no home, so could not do this outside her own front door.

Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 10:13:18
From: ian
To: robot girl
Subject: command

press your nose ten times, each time, make a very loud "honk!" noise like a car horn.

Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 12:06:47
From: robot girl
To: ian
Subject: Re: command

On the 10th July 2002, at 11:47 robot girl stood in a room and pressed her nose ten times.
each time she made a very loud "honk!" noise like a car horn.

Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 20:43:08
From: steve
To: robot girl
Subject: 3 commands

1) Post a message about your site http://talk.to/artrobotgirl, stressing your good nature and willingness to befriend people, to alt.support.loneliness. If you do not know how to post to newsgroups, ask everyone you know how to do it until you find out.
2) Post an enthusiastic message about your site http://talk.to/artrobotgirl on http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/, during working hours, Pacific Standard Time. Repeatedly repost if the message drops out of sight within 1 hour.
3) Email pseuds@private-eye.co.uk, incorporating the text of your Statement and a link to your site http://talk.to/artrobotgirl.

Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:14:33
From: robot girl
To: steve
Subject: Re: 3 commands

robot girl posted an enthusiastic message about her site http://talk.to/artrobotgirl on http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/ at 14:08 on 11th July 2002.The posting reads
robot girl is very enthusiastic about this site: http://talk.to/artrobotgirl

Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:29:49
From: robot girl
To: steve
Subject: Re: 3 commands
Note: forwarded message attached

Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:27:44
From: robot girl
To: pseuds@private-eye.co.uk
Subject: robot girl

I have been instructed to send you this from the site
http://talk.to/artrobotgirl
"robot girl is a performance which explores the boundaries between human and machine. This performance can only be accessed via text, which highlights the way we project our consciousness into mediated forms. In particular it refers to the internet, an entirely imaginary space.
"robot girl also explores control and passivity. By exaggerating the idea of woman as a passive object until it becomes absurd, the performance undermines the stereotype. It also becomes apparent that control is an ambiguous issue. When an authority, institution or a person seem to have power, they may be admitting their dependence on those who gave it to them. Control can be taken back as well as given. Even if we believe another person is doing what we want, they could just be performing..."

Date: Tue 16 Jul 2002 12:40:53
From: robot girl
To: steve
Subject: Re: 3 commands

On 16/07/02 at 12:38, robot girl posted the following message at alt.support.loneliness

From: artrobotgirl@yahoo.co.uk (robot girl)
Newsgroups: alt.support.loneliness
Subject: robot girl
NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.195.78.33
Message-ID: <4179cc6d.0207160336.545ca892@posting.google.com>

Hello, I am robot girl. I would like to tell you about my site
http://talk.to/artrobotgirl. I would be very happy to make friends with you.