Meanwhile, at a future Venice Biennale
It's a doubtful thing to be in the cultural sway of Venice, especially when you are Montenegrin, like us and our robots.
In their 85th Biennale (that's the most recent one), the Venetians are perturbed by the world's robot labor crisis. We Montenegrins, by contrast, are world-renowned as the Earth's most indolent people. We don't much fret about the lost jobs and the work, because we're occupied with our poetry, our folk music, our rugged mountain landscapes and our local habit of gently flipping worry-beads all day.
Still, we must confront the judgmental Venetians and their many cultural anxieties. It's not that they harass us every day, but every two years, they do get frenetic.‟You people,” they informed me just now, because of my regional art-world connections, "You Montenegrin people are so lazy that you can't even name your own country. Venice had to do that." ("Monte Negro" simply means "Crna Gora," but Italians can't pronounce our real name.) "Also, Venice built all your best seaside resort towns."
The modern Venetians are always carrying on about cities, because, in these days of sharply rising sea-levels, all seaside cities are becoming Venice. Yes, it's canals for streets in New York, London, Tokyo; for all of them.
Every seaside city on Earth must follow the cultural lead of Venice. That's simply how it is and must be. That is also why the Beachcomber Robot of Novi Kotor is the hardest-working robot in all of Montenegro.
He is certainly an examplar of robot labor, yet also a critically important artwork.
The Beachcomber is tireless, colorful, unique, and a major local tourist attraction. Since I am the host and proprietor of the "Pirate Robot Travel Lounge" of Novi Kotor, it’s up to me to explain the robot phenomenon to you....
