“So, there you go,” Jason says as he picks the little robot up off the floor; a dome with “eyes” painted on it and three small rubber wheels. The automaton is not much larger than his hand. When he hands it to Elsa he notices again how amazingly long and slender and pale her fingers are, like the branches of a birch. She’s giddy as she turns the mechanical wonder over and over, this way and that.

The room they are in is just a concrete room—cinder block walls with large, industrial, frosted windows on one side. The other walls are covered in blank canvases, painted canvases, rolls of canvas, tarps, paint. Opposite the windows is a long beat-up counter with brushes, buckets, machine parts and tools, and pieces of electronics in various states of disrepair.

“Each one has a single color inkjet, right there.” He points out the nozzle on the underbelly.

She looks up at him and smiles. “Jason Gunn, du really are fascinating.” Then she leans over and kisses him on the cheek.

“Du?”

“Oh, yes! English. YOU.”

He feels the hairs on his cheek and neck stand up on end. “Well, I’m glad you think it’s neat.”

“Neat?” She gives him an incredulous look and begins walking around a canvas laid out on the floor with nine other robots whirring and painting, in her knee-high Manolo Blahnik Bulagro boots. They’re huge on her thin frame and the “chok” of each heel on the concrete floor reverberates coldly through the studio. With her arms crossed in concentration, she takes on the appearance of a military officer inspecting her troops. He sees the German in her. She is calm enough to be quiet and contemplate her opinion, but in his mind, he sees her turn at him, furious, saying, “Zis is not art, you wimpy little man! Zis is sheitza!” He smiles to himself.

“Explain again why zey do not always paint ze same sing?”

“Oh right.” Jason switches from bashful to explication mode, his tone quick and excited, “You see each individual robot takes in cues from the ambient light in the room right? So if we were to turn off some of the lights in here or even just move the whole thing outside—the amount and kind of light changes the initial direction and ink flow and path, like how much they turn and how often. I mean, the whole point really, for me at least, is that I can choose the initial conditions—things like the color palette and the bot’s algorithms, but I never know what the painting is going to precisely end up like. I like it that way.”

Elsa’s head is cocked and she’s smiling at Jason as though he were from another planet entirely. She’s clutching the painter beetle to her chest fondly when something clicks and then whirs. The wheels start to turn randomly and a small jet of orange ink sprays all over her white silk blouse. Startled, she screams out and fumbles with the machine turning it over twice and stooping down before she can set it down on the canvas where it goes on merrily painting and rolling about.

“Oh God. Oh. I’m so sorry.” Jason is moving towards her quickly, arms outstretched. But just then she bursts out laughing her fantastically loud, boisterous laugh and puts her hands, one of which is now orange, over her mouth.

“Oh man. I’m sooo sorry. The on switch—it’s like right there on the—“

“No, no! Look!” Elsa holds her arms out. There are several stripes up and down her right arm and two big blotches on the right side of her chest. “Now I am a Jason Gunn piece! Vunderbar!” And she laughs again. Jason’s still looking apologetic as she throws her arms around him and pulls him in. He squirms a little reluctantly at first because of the wet ink on her, but looks her in the eyes. Their eyes are even with one another. “I am going to wear this shirt und when my friends say ‘Elsa! Where did you get this shirt?’ I vill smile and tell zem, ‘It is a Jason Gunn original. It is ze only one like it in the whole world.'” Then she kisses him. He relinquishes himself to the wet ink and puts his arms around her tight. He’s amazed because when he looks at her she seems so gigantic in every dimension, like a billboard come to life. Her motions, her stride, her laugh, all of them seem huge, but in his arms she feels positively small and fragile. They kiss for a while as the robots busily scrawl their brightly colored lines.

Read the whole thread: Untouchable

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