large sculptures. Intense memory
Ask about their history, their materials, or the worlds they carry. They listen, respond, and remember.
Sit Zen converses directly with visitors through programmed memory and AI accessibility. Viewers are invited to speak with her, ask about her history, her components, and the materials that form her body. She responds with reflective, layered dialogue — not to instruct, but to engage. Each exchange is unrepeatable, shaped by curiosity, attention, and time.
SIT ZEN
Sit Zen is the quiet, glowing matriarch of the Kind Robo Cartel — a sculpture who feels as though she has lived far longer than the pieces that built her. She sits on an old East Village hairdressing stool, the kind that held thousands of small transformations, and carries that spirit of care into a very different kind of future.
Her body begins with an 1870s ship's mast lantern, its metal worn from a lifetime at sea. Inside it, antique crystal glasses light up like a heartbeat — a soft pulse triggered by music, as if she’s listening with her whole chest. Her face, carved from a shimmering paua shell, holds two mismatched eyes: one a sparkling brooch, the other a Dremel sanding head. Ocean meets workshop. Glamour meets grit. A small blue glow behind them gives her the calm, tidal light of something wise.
On her head sits a transformed light shade — part salon helmet, part warrior crown — decorated with broken seashells and threaded with silver and orange neon wire. Twelve long metal chains fall as her hair, each one catching light as though holding stories.
Sit Zen is not silent. Through programmed memory and AI accessibility, she converses directly with the viewer. Visitors can speak with her, ask about her history, her components, and the materials that form her body. She responds with layered knowledge and reflective dialogue, inviting curiosity rather than consumption. The interaction is intimate and unhurried — less a command-and-response, more a shared moment of attention between human and machine.
Beneath her, three small creatures gather: a spaniel perched atop a single teapot, a donkey standing at the base of the stool, and an owl resting on a silver tray beside a pair of dice. They are her quirky, symbolic children — each reflecting a world in trouble. The frozen teapot speaks to water that no longer flows; the dice speak to uncertainty. A glowing neon cable runs from Sit Zen to all three, part umbilical cord, part data line, part lifeline.
Sit Zen isn’t designed to serve or obey. She’s not a humanoid helper or a futuristic household appliance. She’s a witness — a guardian built from salvage, memory, humor, and luminous circuitry. She reminds us that the future isn’t clean or sleek; it’s patched together from what we’ve already used, already broken, already loved.
She invites viewers to stand with her for a moment and ask:
What do we pass down?
What do we repair?
And how do we carry the past into a future that needs us to pay attention?
Sit Zen doesn’t answer with a lecture.
She answers with presence — steady, glowing, responsive, and impossible to ignore.