the robot worlds of eric joyner

the first robot i can recall appeared on the epic and ground-breaking british tv series doctor who. those robots were a species with a name - the "daleks" (pronounced dah lex). the daleks were a highly-organized and mostly unpleasant bunch who went around in miserable moods, zapping people who interefered with their plans. you can learn much about these features of their makeup by visiting "dalek leader's" john roberto's excellent site on these nasty machines. you can also listen to their unforgettable voices which were treated to sound like an angry radio by dropping in here.

eric joyner's vision is generally much much more benign as this lovely painting "false spring" attests . . . in
joyner's world, robots sit happily mowing down donuts (or is it a bagel?) on the pier of a bridge as here in "the incident show" or head to the beach for a pensive moment with a small model of the mothership that perhaps delivered them to this planet. in the background, a massive dinosaur battles a monster but no worry!! it's lovely and warm "on the beach".

equally pensive and perhaps considering the import of a painting it recently viewed, here's a robot striking a familiar pose . . .

joyner's world is at once playful and discordant. the obvious references to childhood toys are tickled ever so slightly by their being placed as replacements for humans. crossing the line from mechanical objects into sentient feeling beings, they take on a new significance as strange mirrors of our own emotional experience and mental landscapes.

here's a video interview with eric . . .