Crawling "Sarariman" Robot Critiques Japan's Economic Problems

Crawling the streets of Sydney is Japanese artist Torimitsu Momoyo's critique on Japan's current economic woes. The robot is a life-size representation of a Japanese "sarariman" or salary man, which crawls along the ground while Torimitsu, dressed in a white nurse's outfit, tends to it. She lights its cigarette, changes its battery and performs other services as part of a performance piece.

Torimitsu states that crawling is how soldiers move, calling salary men the "soldiers of the company." Perhaps a more damning interpretation of the piece would be that Japan's salary men are content to simply crawl along, helped on their way by a government loathe to reform its aging business model. The "sarariman" was seen as a key factor in Japan's economic boom from the 1960s through the 80's. The hardworking, committed company employee was symbolic of the nation's culture of modernization in the postwar period. Since the bubble, however, the "sarariman" is increasingly the subject of ridicule and seems to be holding the nation's economy back rather than moving it forward.

[via Gizmodo]