A nude figure with frazzled hair lies in bed, the sickly colored linens draped across their upper body. Fingertips glowing red as if inflamed, the character grasps a navy phone and stares catatonically at the screen. A vibrant infinity symbol is superimposed on the scene, emerging as endless loops of energy and mesmerization from the device.
The all-too-relatable portrait is part of a suite of new works by Robin F. Williams capturing the omnipotent techno-dystopia we’re collectively barreling toward. Extrapolating on the ways humanity and machines merge, the Brooklyn-based artist presents a mystical vision of another world infused with pop culture and art history.
“The Merminator,” for example, combines two characters of the ’80s—a cyborg assassin and a Disney princess—to form a metallic bot perched on a stone as it, like Ariel, peers toward a world it presumably longs to be part of and yet won’t be accepted in.
There’s also “I Am Not a Robot,” a symmetric piece that takes cues in composition and color palette from the spiritualist abstractions of Hilma af Klint. The painting also draws from Boticelli’s “Madonna of the Pomegranate,” which presents the titular fruit as a visual metaphor for the human heart. In Williams’ iteration, though, the subject is the phone, radiating outward in place of the life-giving source.
Under the fitting title Act Natural, the body of work plunges into the uncanny without settling into the strange state of things. The too-sleek, frictionless world the artist portrays exudes the allure of technology alongside the immense horror it elicits.
P·P·O·W presents Act Natural as a pop-up at Frieze’s No. 9 Cork Street in London, where it’s on view through October 24. Explore more of Williams’ work on Instagram.
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