Let Me Fix You

ASMR as a rising form of online content reduces the body to a gamable center of pleasure to be derived from sensory stimuli, it betrays a willingness to perceive the human form as merely a loosely bound collection of mechanical systems vulnerable to exploitation. The subsection of ASMR videos specialized in “robot-repair” perhaps even more so. Focusing thematically on concerns surrounding the rise of robotic carers, this work draws attention to the decreased humanism in care, ethical boundaries regarding who is cared for and how, as well as to whom the responsibility to repair and maintain falls. Traditionally regarded as a female field, care and maintenance (spaces with limited growth potential) have been disregarded in portrayals of possible futures, preferring rather to dream of leaving behind a crumbling status quo to explore imagined vistas with space for endless expansion. ‘Let me fix you’ asks us to reassess our relationship to that which requires care and maintenance, and to attend to what is present as holistically valuable rather than divisible and exploitable.