you heard it here first...

[Dave Monroe]

... was wondering when and how Jean Tinguely would come up here.  But do
check out the following for an interesting hicult/locult, er, "contrast"
...

http://www.srl.org/

http://www.comedycentral.com/bots/

... and thanks for those sites you posted.  Not "our" "jporter," alas,
but ... but as you all know, I'm sure, that convergence of those curves
of artificiality, robotics, and, er, femininity ("No puns where ...")
are of no small interest to me.  Fortunately, tehy are also of no small
relevance to V., so, let me recommend once again, on the scholarly end
...

Lathers, Marie.  The Aesthetics of Artifice: Villiers' Future Eve.
    Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1996.

Annette Michelson, "On the Eve of the Future: The Reasonable
    Facsimile and the Philosophical Toy,” October 29 (Summer 1984):
    3-21

Miller Frank, Felicia.  The Mechanical Song: Women, Voice, and
    the Artificial in Nineteenth Century French Narrative.  Stanford,
CA:
    Stanford UP, 1995.

... plus several essays on Metropolis I'd be glad to dig up on request.
Or even not by request.  Many, many useful references at ..

http://campuscgi.princeton.edu/~scg/dept/ger/520/syl.s00.shtml

... and, on the (science) fiction end ...

Villiers de Li'Isle-Adam.  Tomorrow's Eve.  Trans. Robert Martin
    Adams.  Urbana: U of Illionos P, 2001 [1980 (1886)]

... now back in print!  And included in its entirety in ...

Hustvedt, Asti, ed.  The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy, and
    Perversion from Fin-de-Siecle France.  New York: Zone, 1998.

... and see also, on that cybergoth tip, in which, indeed, "artificial
intelligence, moleculkar biology and robotics all converge" ...

Calder, Richard.  Dead Girls.  New York: St. Martins, 1995

... also anthologized with its sequels in ...

Calder, Richard.  Dead Girls/Dead Boys/Dead Things.
    New York: St. Martins, 1998.

... and, to be a completist, a related novel ...

Calder, Richard.  Cythera.  New York: St. Martins, 1998.

... which features a couple of "subdebs" in its vocabulary, even ..