Astounding, exciting, beautiful! I am jealous. A friend emailed me links to some serious sex and robotics hackery when two coworkers decided to hardware hack together a Puppet Master computer, a la Ghost in the Shell — this one in a female gynoid shell. Rather, a very busty female mannequin stuffed with some very interesting hardware. Some explanation on the internals (motherboard, etc.) can be found at their wiki Master Control Puppet 9000, “a.k.a. MetaCorpse, the ultimate hardware pr0n project.”
I was sent exquisite photos of the parts, process and installing the MCP 9000 seen in this Flickr set, For Hardware That is True. When I saw some of the images, I immediately requested permission to blog and got the go-ahead, and found out that while the concept-design was by Eliot Phillips (RobotSkirts), it was made by a woman: her name is Astera and she has more photos of the GiTS build here.
They were inspired by this comic book panel:
But they noticed how much it looks like this:
Here’s a grainy pic of their GiTS model hanging up in Astera’s bedroom. Post photos by Astera Schneeweisz.
Strangely enough, the GitS comic (or one of the author/creator’s artbooks, I can’t remember which at this point) was the first thing that had ever brought up the idea of a true virtual sexual experience. Pretty much that without a real neural man/machine interface, such a thing would require a rather cumbersome bodysuit, and so would be unlikely. Reading that statement as a teenager, more than a decade ago, blew me away that someone had thought that far ahead about it, but left me with a vague feeling disappointment. Now, I’m just waiting for the app to come out.
The comic and TV show also brushed up against interesting topics like sex and gender swapping, including some interesting sexual practices that might emerge when the brain is the only living thing about the person. When the only thing left of you is your gray matter, would gender identity matter so much? Especially when swapping out bodies would become both safe and feasible? It raises some interesting questions.
so re blogging this
You’re a fan of GiTS? Wow! I thought I was the only one who liked that complex show. Now just imagine them getting this to move, think, and act like Motoko! Only time will tell.