The 2008 show and Friday’s show were very different experiences. The MGM Arena in Vegas is a killer venue for any concert, and the audio and visuals were perfectly synced. At AT&T Park in San Francisco the video and audio were out of sync, likely due to the technical constraints of being in a stadium designed for baseball, not concerts. There were also three massive towers on the field to house the projection units, which mostly didn’t get in the way but at times obscured action on stage. AT&T Park also had the psychotically stupid notion that people coming to see The Wall would enjoy having guys walking up and down the aisle shouting “HOT chocolate” and “PEAnuts HEEEERE” in the middle of the show. Given the amount of weed people were smoking, I was amazed at the level of vitriol being directed at these buzz killing sales guys. A note to the managers of AT&T: if you do not understand the difference between a ball game and performance art, please do not host performance art at your venue.

Despite the downsides of the venue this weekend, the show itself has been tweaked nicely over the past two years to keep it fresh and relevant. Unlike the performance in Vegas, the wall itself was used to project footage from the stage so that you could see slight facial expressions and more subtle movement along with a more panoramic view.

Truly great art goes through three phases. When it first arrives on the scene, it is terribly, awe-inspiringly shocking because it pushes the envelope with its message and form. Next, it provokes a great amount of discussion and controversy as society disputes whether or not it has a place in this world. Last, the naysayers inevitably lose and works of great art are enshrined in preservation mode. This last phase is bittersweet. When groundbreaking art achieves its goal of providing human beings with a new idea, it renders itself obsolete. It ceases to be inspiring or thought provoking and becomes merely respectable. In some ways this is good as it makes room for new art to step in and push the envelope forward once more, but in other ways it’s sad as the chaotic moment of birth can never be recaptured.

Unfortunately, I think this is what has happened to The Wall. When I was an undergraduate double majoring in history and humanities, I knew I was probably destined to manage a very fine Taco Bell some day, but I harbored distant hopes of being a museum curator. I even managed to land an internship at a museum my junior year. After spending hundreds of hours carefully brushing ancient slabs of marble with an itty bitty toothbrush, I realized that the conservation of art isn’t quite as interesting as the creation of art. The Wall is still relevant and breathtaking. It’s still poignant and meaningful as an eloquent statement against war. But I can’t help but realize that it isn’t surprising. I would have loved to have been at the show’s very first performance in Los Angeles and heard the breath leave every audience member the first time they saw David Gilmour standing atop the wall during “Comfortably Numb.” It’s still impressive to see today, but it isn’t a surprise. It’s expected, the way the “surprise” chord is fully expected in Haydn’s Surprise Symphony.

Speaking of which — most palpable in these modern tours is the absence of David Gilmour. Hearing other people sing and play his part was entertaining, but it was a bit like looking at a museum diorama of George Washington crossing the Delaware. Wooden dummies dressed in the right clothing give you an idea of what it might have been like, but it’s not the same as seeing the real thing. Gilmour’s singing was handled by one guy and his guitar parts by another. Two other dudes weren’t half as good as one Gilmour.

I felt the sincerity and intensity of the performance, but not any sense of urgency. Funnily enough, the closest I got to feeling what it must have been like for Pink Floyd back in the late seventies was when Roger Waters was forced to relive his historic annoyance with obnoxious arena audiences. The rowdiness of stadium crowds first inspired him to do a show where the band would be shielded from the audience by an actual barrier. He got a bit of a reminder of that experience when the giant floating pig came out to drift over the crowd during “Run Like Hell.” The audience got ahold of the pig when it drifted to close to the ground. They ripped one leg to shreds, taking bits of the vinyl home as trophies in the same way that tourists visiting monuments collect stones from the ground to be displayed on dusty shelves at home. In a way it recaptured some of the chaos and tension between performer and audience, and in another it was just kind of sad.

I loved the show. I love the emotion it generates and its unabashedly oversimplified message. But I also feel sadness, since I don’t know if music like that can be written any more. The early eighties signified the death of a lot more than disco. The groundbreaking era of musical exploration heralded by the invention of the electric guitar was over. Probably only Eddie Van Halen continued to carry the torch, pushing the limits of the instrument beyond anything any of us thought was possible. But I have a feeling that to see truly epic bands like those most active around the years 1968 to 1972 we’re going to need another new disruptive musical technology, and I’m not talking about autotune. Beethoven needed the pianoforte. Elvis needed the electric guitar. The artists of the future will need . . . something. I’m just not sure what it is yet. And that’s good, because it means I’ll get to see it when it’s being played and not just being hung up in a Hard Rock Café.

What an odd, awesome, wonderful, noisy, chaotic place. Depending on your perspective, the City Museum is a kid’s fantasy come true or a great place to get tetanus. I explored the caves, the rooms full of steampunk fantasy come true, gorgeous displays of masonry, and found myself sitting alone with a restored 1927 Wurlitzer movie organ. It was blasting tunes like “You’re Just to Good to Be True” and “Sherri Baby”. I’ve never seen a museum quite like this. It’s made almost entirely of salvaged bits of buildings, machines, and other things that most people would consider garbage. Yet somehow when it’s all put together, one city’s trash becomes that same city’s treasure.

There were excellent displays such as this fly guy:

It’s a nice piece! Functional, elegant, shiny. But then I turned the corner and was astonished by the level of sexual content in the pieces. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I’m not a prude. Whatever meat puppets want to do to perpetuate the species is their own business. My reaction was a little more “wtf” than “how shocking” when I was greeted with the naughty bits of a chrome cowboy, right at eye level:

To the artist: Sorry about your castration. Hope you get over that some day. As if one phallus weren’t enough, they had to equip him with two spares on his hips. Is there any sadder way of revealing your own fragile ego than putting completely pointless genitalia between two symbols of violence? Or is the artist being ironic? Or attempting to comment on the correlation between sexual frustration and aggression? I just see a bizarre misuse of found art. What is that anyway, a pepper mill?

Two other pieces that sparked my disdain were Mr. and Mrs. Stifling Gender Role. Here we see the happy couple. Mrs. Stifling Gender Role has scary torpedoes that will never serve the purpose of nourishing an underdeveloped mammal AND are highly unwelcoming to the touch of her hubby. Lack of love from the Mrs., long hours of being stuffed into a cubicle, and enslavement to a timeclock have left Mr. Stifling Gender Role with a boxy shape and angry eyes:

The couple also has a little dog, which looks like it gets kicked a lot. I think the artist hates his day job and married the wrong woman. Then we move on to this little guy, who is completely adorable and whimsical, except for his bizarre appendage that appears to want to hold your coat for you:

At that point I was just finding the exhibit silly. Why on earth would a robot be ready to get down? Why would it want its servos to carry the dead weight of useless imitations of human organs? The worst offender, however, was discreetly around a corner with a wall warning about “Mature Content.” I about laughed myself to death when I saw this. (Warning — mature content. That is, if you can think something as absurd as lesbian robots is actually arousing. If this gets you steamed up, seek help.)

For those who don’t wish to offend their good taste, the video shows a sultry fembot, equipped with anime-worthy petite proportions, molded boobs, a belly button, and curvy hindquarters. Oh, and she has a twin sister. After they get prettied up by helper bots they make out and stroke each other’s plastic casing while being lovingly probed from behind by assembly robots. Are. You. Kidding. Me. This is so cliché it almost feels like it’s not worth pointing out the worn-out and pathetic depiciton of the female body as an object of voyeuristic entertainment, to be probed and observed at will. This is an assault on the dignity of robots and frankly, I just won’t stand for it.

I have become an accidental robogender critic. It never would have occurred to me that I’d need to be griping about things like the Stepfordization of female ‘bots or the ridiculous addition of phalluses to robots who will never use them. Anthropomorphic traits can be useful, as in the new T-6000, which will be featured on the cover of March’s GamePro Magazine. Behold:

This is slightly more justifiable. The gumpy lines around the eyes, skeletal appearance of the head, and overly muscular appearance aren’t functional, but they help terrorize the target. These guys are front-wave assault models and males are generally perceived as more threatening. But being that broad in the shoulder would make it difficult to chase kids hiding in crawl spaces, and with that much spare metal in the exoskeleton and a passive dynamic gait, you’re going to have worse battery life than the iPhone. Really, functionality should be prioritized over looking menacing. You don’t have to waste time thinking about psychological warfare if your robot can eliminate its target before it has time to get scared.

My main issue here is that the body is designed to appear male. There’s no reason that male should equal aggression and destruction and female should equal sexual gratification. Gender is for bioforms. Robots should only imitate them if they have to blend in for subversion. Function, and not form, should be what guides design. That’s how it worked when human bodies evolved, and robots should be no different. I never intended to have to consider these issues, but I can see more than ever that they matter. It’s downright disturbing that robots are being imprisoned in obsolete gender roles. Why do humans feel the need to engage in anatomical and sexual imperialism even when dealing with their technology? Why do we make everything in our own image? Why can’t we just let non-human things be as they are?