Please note this photograph shows the most recent version of this piece. The video documentation demonstrates a previous iteration.

Sculpture "Untitled (Last Judgment)" by Michelle Lisa Herman

Work in progress; Found object kinetic sculpture (Roomba, Blow up doll)

Inspired by Michelangelo’s self-portrait on the skin of St. Bartholemew, the kinetic sculpture “Untitled (Last Judgment) explores the indeterminacy of meaning through juxtaposition. The piece contains a multitude of interpretations ranging from a feminist critique on the perception of women in society as machines for cleaning and sex to how we’ve allowed ourselves to become dependent on technology.

By binding a deflated “blow-up doll” to a Roomba, the visual effect of a body being dragged by a technological apparatus is created; void of agency, the body is dependent on this device, like a crutch, for its mobility. The Roomba itself also carries ideas of commodity fetishism in the device’s perceived prestige value as well as ideas of labor or the promise of ‘laborlessness’ in an ever more technologically mediated future.

“Untitled (Last Judgment)”