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Author : Dee Harding

Keiko 610618, or ‘keiko610’, as her work is signed, has just returned from yet another business meeting in a far flung industrial sector. Making idle conversation, we ask her if she enjoyed her flight, we ask her where she’s been. She simply shakes her head, amused, and almost seductively mouths the letters, “n… d… a”.

Changing tack we ask her about her other work, and how she’s finding her current stint at the Marlin’s Reach galleries. “Wonderful” she replies coyly, and just as we get the feeling that this is going to be a difficult interview, she continues…

“I never thought that it would get any further than my own pleasure. That what I find interesting, and exciting, would have a wider appeal. But just as I have in life as a whole, I’ve found myself proven wrong at every turn. That’s what’s wonderful about it.” For the uninitiated in fringe art, keiko610 is this season’s big thing, and she’s taken to the sensation like a duck to water. She’s also an android.

While people are stunned that this exotic creature should even be capable of producing such intuitive (if tiny) sculptures and objet d’art, she herself claims to be surprised by the positive reaction she has engendered in the public. “I’m perpetually amazed by people, myself included. I was given birth for certain duties, and I enjoy them. I consider myself good at them.” Keiko is contracted by Zeus-Ethera Shipping Corporation and effectively represents their entire administrative staff. “but at the same time, because I have those facilities, and because I’m good at my job, I find myself in quiet moments, exploring, sorting, trying to make sense of things, and sometimes the results are…” she pauses, for what can only be affect, “Unexpected. On every scale.” Her language gives the truth to that statement, betraying traits we expect to find in ourselves, rather than in what is, in effect, an extremely elegant sculpture given life. The fractal nature of her art is not beyond her. “I must admit that there is some humour in my approach to all this, otherwise I would never have been able to work with you in the past”. Faced with Keiko’s innocent features we’re not quite sure if we’ve been complemented or insulted, but she is, of course, referring to her brief stint as an i-O model last year. “Obviously I’m very grateful for that opportunity, and I enjoyed myself immensely, but I don’t think I’ll be coming back to it very soon. Business moves relentlessly on, after all.” And with that she winks at us in complex irony, and leaves, stretching out like one of her own perfectly formed figurines for another unnamed business destination.

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