Coke Is It
2004 / electrical and miscellaneous
parts, robotic assembly, pbasic
In this artwork, the routine destruction we do to our
bodies, mitigated through corporate mass media, is
comically expressed through a robot named C3 (parodying
Coca Cola's low-carb product C2). C3 is a hex-crawler
robot, outfitted with a CMUcam, enabling it with the
ability to search and find puddles of Coca Cola placed on
the gallery floor. When C3 finds a puddle of Coke, it sucks
the beverage up through an electrical pump, and then sprays
it across itself. The acidic compounds in Coke eventually
eats through the robot’s skin, finding its way to the
circuitry, causing it to break down. The robot is designed
to search and consume until it kills itself. Companies such
as Coca Cola deploy marketing strategies that infuse
culture with a sense of well-being and elevated self-worth,
contradicting the actual benefits of the consumable
product.