(Published October 8 - 14, 2004)
BEST OF LA: The Seven Deadly Sins
Best Fire-Breathing Robots
Christian Ristow doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you’d want to piss off. It’s not that he’s particularly violent in his day-to-day life. (In fact, he’s rather sweet.) It’s that he spends his spare time making life-size Transformers that could eat your SUV for breakfast. Ristow, the mastermind behind the performance group Robochrist, does special effects for movies and television by day, but by night he makes large-scale, fire-breathing robots whose only purpose is robo-violence. The lucky few can see one of Ristow’s Robochrist performances at Burning Man and festivals such as Coachella, where fire-bots with names like the Subjugator and Spiderbot make havoc. And the general public can check out Ristow’s studio in the Brewery during one of the seasonal Artwalks; though you’ll miss out on the robot-eats-robot destruction of a performance, you can still see the sculptures up close, play with smaller robots (e.g., a crow that flaps its wings at the push of a button and a giant severed hand that raps its fingers on command), and watch Ristow’s turbine blow a beer can across the parking lot. Either way, you’re in for one hell of a charge.
Even standing still, Ristow’s gigantic machines are impressive: The Subjugator, which started out as a Bobcat excavator, weighs 500 pounds, can lift 1,500 and spits a 15-foot stream of fire. And during one of the themed Robochrist shows, when robots attack giant icons (French fries, a cigarette pack, a liquor bottle) to make philosophical points before tearing each other to pieces, the vicarious thrill is almost unbearable. “Robot performance has proven to be a very effective venue for releasing aggression and violent urges,” says Ristow in his biography. “I’m happiest when I’m smashing things with a robot; luckily for me, audiences seem to like violence, too.” —Molly Freedenberg
Photos by Jeff Clark . More photos of Ristow on Jeff's site or on Robochrist's homepage .
Comments