eeryan-Looking Outwards – 01

A piece of the pie chart is an interactive robotics installation that was created by Annina Rust. Viewers can look up different professions within the arts and tech industries on a monitor, a pie chart of the gender ratio in that profession is then printed and moved by a robotic arm and attached to a cookie. The pictures of these pie charts are automatically photographed and tweeted. I thought that the unique approach this artist/ inventor took to give a platform to examine the unequal ratio of men to women in colleges, labs, and the workplace in the tech world was interesting, and it’s reference to baking, considered traditionally a “women’s role” drew my attention. She began this project in 2013, and it is still on display. To my knowledge, she did not use custom software in creating this project. When I saw her speak she mentioned that while she isn’t currently updating the project, she has considered creating a version using something other than robot arms for assembly in the future. The only critique I would have of this work is that the pie charts are not actually edible, making the final product of the installation seem less unified.