Dec 07: Emiland Kray, Even Robots Feel Sad Sometimes

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Even Robots Feel Sad Sometimes

Emiland Kray

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Emiland Kray, Robots Woah, diptych, ink on paper, 5.5”x4”, digitized into a gif, 2025

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In a bout of sleepwalking at 17, I was visited by a robotic child in my dreams. In a miraculous feat, while completely asleep I imagined following this child from my bedroom into the hallway. Her head had pulsating electrical charges beneath yellow plexiglass and I remember the clicking of her feet upon the tiled floor outside of my bedroom. Pressed up against the garage door, she extended her hand to me. As I reciprocated the gesture, a few things happened. To anyone who may have been watching, I collapsed. Completely breaking the sleep/wake trance and fading utterly into unconsciousness as a pile upon the garage floor. To the robot, I grabbed her hand and a part of me transcended humankind and my body transformed into a shimmering metal sheet unburdened by breath and sleep and food. And to me, I saw stars and my vision sparkled for a brief moment as our fingertips touched.
During this time in my life, I was dealing with the onset of generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and at the cusp of a drug addiction. It was routine that I would starve myself in my childhood room, chewing on the heads of my erasers to experience the mouthfeel of aluminum while drawing on my ceiling, walls, and floor. Matched only by amphetamines, my hand never slowed, aside from sleep, which was riddled with nightmares. My thoughts were like pistons as I spent several sleepless nights drawing simply because slowing down was mixed with a shame that came with mortality. Most of my mental breaks resulted in thoughts of wishing to be robotic, to simply work, unrelentingly, in an inevitable climb to production. And it seemed that very early on, this behavior was not only tolerated, but encouraged. Consistent positive feedback from academia and gallerists that were now expectant of that quantity of work from me fueled my now obsessive desire to draw and write and make.
     A year prior to my robotic sleepwalking experience, I remember scanning the clearance aisle in a Borders for crossword or sudoku books. Instead, I was immediately drawn to the last copy of a Taschen art book, H.R. Giger, for $14.98. A pittance really for the 240 page, color illustrated hardcover book about the Alien-Porno-King himself. I was introduced to Giger’s work, like most folks, through the iconic monster and set designs in the 1979 film Alien and perpetuated through that entire franchise. Simultaneously phallic and feminine, Giger’s aliens stalk spaces that are both android and organic. Before purchasing this book, I had never given any thought to his earlier career, or to how he was hauntingly like me and so many other artists: prolific to a fault, addicted to drugs, and sliding up and down from manic episodes. It seems as though Giger was also playing a balancing act between self-harm and artistic success.

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H.R. Giger, Head |||, 1969, Oil on cardboard, 54 x 63 cm

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Giger’s early work was pornographic and grotesque. It formally reflected a masturbatory speed and desperation within the quick quality of his marks, and the content that he drew was equally disturbing. His pen and ink work created in his twenties mostly depicted decapitation, fetuses, and/or inexplicable limbs. The speed that was prescribed to each mark coupled with the experimental nature of both composition and content consistently broke basic rules about anatomy and several social norms with his depictions of pornography and Satan. And it’s in that sweet spot where I see a glimpse of things that were special to me in moments of mania: a boldness to the ink, unified chimeric shapes, and the sheer fucking quantity of work. Did Giger want to be a robot too?

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H.R. Giger, Self Portrait, 1962, ink on paper, 15.3 x 20 cm

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The trope of the self-harming mentally-ill artist is a stylish framework within arts education and art history from which to view the art historical canon, and also to help define the avant-garde. Its edgy allure makes it easy for artists to feel pressured to suffer for their work in order to fit within that familiar narrative, but the consequences of this stereotype are terrible. In the winter of 1888 Vincent van Gogh had a manic episode after an argument and cut off his own ear, reporting the next day that he had no memory of the event. Amy Winehouse, one of the most unique jazz singers in our lifetime, battled alcoholism, drug addiction, and bipolar disorder until she died of substance abuse. In a letter to his father, Michelangelo Buonarroti said, “I lead a miserable existence and reck not of life nor honor—that is of this world; I live wearied by stupendous labors and beset by a thousand anxieties. And thus I lived for some fifteen years now and never an hour’s happiness I have had.” The list is seemingly endless, but when actual medical intervention is taken, it reflects an inept healthcare system. After Britney Spears’ public health emergency in 2007, she was prescribed Lithium and incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a tragic but not unique story how medicine and psychiatry control women rather than help them. The psychoactive drugs prescribed to Sylvia Plath to treat her depression are suspected of being the very substances that actually enabled her to take her own life. And when I sought mental health care after consistently having panic attacks in my studio, I was put onto a 6 week fast-track therapy program that resulted in no tangible change.
     Furthermore, it also seems like artists who make while manic, depressed, or while pushing through panic attacks are celebrated for doing so and that experience becomes a selling point and a status symbol. As an art student, two mentors of mine were open in their discussions with me about their drug abuse. One was a prolific draftsperson who continually blew out his shoulder after long hours in the studio and was prescribed Percocets for the pain. These opioids eventually made his drawings sloppy, but gallerists then described his work as ‘showcasing a truer anguish’. The second insisted that I try coding while high after describing his ideal cocktail of drugs containing fentanyl and mdma. A touring musician friend of mine whenever visiting town always asks me for an Adderall connection (to which I have none), and it’s situations like this where sometimes I ask myself which came first? The artist or the addiction? Because, it’s obviously both a behavior that is encouraged from the outside, purported by gallerists, art writers, and critics spinning a stereotype, but it’s also perpetuated from within through initially well intentioned treatment, but also through good old fashioned peer pressure.
     In an interview between Giger and Dan O’Bannon, a film screenwriter and effects supervisor most famous for the screenplay for Alien and The Return of the Living Dead, he confirmed Giger was an opium addict. Originally dosing opium to treat his night terrors, one of O’Bannon’s first accounts with Giger was at a hotel in Paris where Giger approached him with some tin foil and said bluntly, “Would you like to do some opium?”
     Dan: “Why do you take that?”
     Giger:”I am afraid of my visions”
     Dan: “It’s only in your mind”
     Giger: “That is what I am afraid of.”
     Maybe it’s prewritten, where those of us who use art to purge, must also treat the poisoned well with chlorine or fluoride. But it’s also those very moments where drugs blunt the hopeless life ahead of us, and sharpen a focus that delivers us to a flow state with ease. Again, interviews with Giger feel like a mirror as I am transported back to watching my dilated pupils flick back and forth in a mirror, or drawing portrait after portrait upon my friend’s printer paper after a night of dropping acid and watching the sunrise.
     The first time that I wanted to be robotic was actually before my sleep walking adventure in the garage. It was because of the pain that the developing calluses in my fingers were causing because of my rigorous drawing habits. I grip my drawing utensils between my middle finger and my ring finger and, growing up, it caused a noticeable divot in the tip of my ring finger. Even into adulthood the finger is misshapen around a now beloved callus. When this was developing, I was around 14 years old and was regularly filling up sketchbooks with ink and pencil drawings of robot dogs, and robot peacocks, and robots with scoliosis. The very mechanism that my body was building up to make it so I could draw more, was the very thing I sought to eliminate. My wrists were unyielding engines, but my finger muscles just couldn’t keep up. The more it hurt, the harder I gripped, and thus the more I wished for oil to flow through my veins.

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Emiland Kray, Call Me Mr. Bicycle Chain, chalk pastel on paper, 18”x24”, 2015

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There’s nothing in interviews or biographies about Giger wanting to be a robot, but it was in part because of his work that I knew I wasn’t alone in at least imagining it. In his middle and late career work, much of his figurative work includes androids. Somehow the human body transformed into a mechanical one. Leaning into monochromatic and analogous color palettes, his predominately airbrushed paintings give us the succulent repetition of a well oiled machine. In disgusting awe, Giger oftentimes reduced uniquely human behavior, like fucking, birth, and dying, into mechanized motion. Giger suspended death, and showed us a painless and grotesque world. Decapitation was still prevalent in his work, but the expressions were placid instead of stained and horrified – they were expressions of a robot suspended in the land of the living-ish. 

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H.R. Giger, Passage Temple (Life), 1974, acrylic and ink on paper on wood, 240 x 280 cm

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If we were robotic, then we wouldn’t have to turn to drugs to stay awake or to numb the pain. My mechanized esophagus could drink unleaded gasoline, no actually, I could drink leaded gasoline and be completely unscathed. I could harness the highest octane creative power, carpal tunnel be damned! EntireContribution84 asks Reddit: “What is the problem of becoming an emotionless robot?”, and here I am still wrangling that same question. Getting past two factor authentication may be a short-term issue, but thinking long-term, I could probably make 2-3 good fucking drawings per week. I wouldn’t need to take time to eat or sleep, but instead I could consistently be working. My calluses would go away along with my back pain and migraines. The biggest fear that I have though, is would the art then truly be mine?
     One of the main reasons that I haven’t taken hard drugs in over 5 years now was because it changed the quality of my artwork. Although it increased my productivity levels, the comedowns resulted in crippling impostor syndrome and hellish shame. The artwork felt dry, despite being expressive and opulent. Is this the consequence of being a robot? The marks looked feverish, the work seemed suspended, everlastingly pregnant with an ideal that was ultimately empty. Little information is known about Giger’s drug addiction, but it’s alluded to in his paintings. Heroin syringes for example are repeated motifs in several of his works, but whether or not the artist partook in those drugs is speculation. Even less information is known about any attempts at sobriety for the artist. There are several accounts from partners and friends about potential alcoholism, but nothing concrete and again no professional diagnoses. In a 1994 interview with Steven Cerio, Giger claimed that drugs are completely forbidden in Switzerland, but his romantic partner Li Tobler on multiple occasions has confirmed that drug use was ubiquitous within their relationship.

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Li-||, airbrush on board, 1974

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I cannot deny that something in his artwork reminded me of my years of dissociating while drawing under the influence. From a formal point of view, we share repetition, we share paper and canvas, and we share the robot. The external pressure to create and produce is an ongoing issue with horrific productivity trends like the 5-9 routine, and side hustles just to meet basic needs. Production at a high level has become a necessity for folks just to keep their heads above water, and having a healthy work-life balance is so rare that I am beginning to think that working under capitalism is really just a scam. Fueled by a desire to please an internalized quota at such a young age, I felt compelled to produce constantly. Not only did drawing quiet the pounding in my head, but it also seemed to please those around me and thus my quota got higher and higher. When looking at the late career of Giger, I can’t say for certain that he ever did slow down. Still filling sketchbooks with pornography while also working with industry monsters on projects like Dune, two covers for Heavy Metal magazine, he designed the entire architectural interior for a bar and lounge down to the detailing on furniture design and the patterns in the fucking tiles. The breadth of work that he produced is astonishing, and his signature style is still sought after by artists, make-up artists, screenwriters, and interior designers alike.

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Table, chairs, and tile designed by H.R. Giger for the Giger Bar

Giger Bar interior crop

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Now though, only one of us is still pumping out drawings. H.R. Giger lived until the age of 74 until he died from complications after a fall, and now I am alone to reflect on the high I get from making drawings until my calluses are rubbed raw or my eyes become bloodshot. Not even the Alien-Porno-King himself could keep his pedal to the metal forever with death being the final boundary. While I’m down here, dreaming of the dopamine rush of making 2-3 drawings a week, but realistically hitting my wall at 1, I still think about that little robot girl who visited me when I was a kid. A wordless, outstretched hand. Maybe, at 74, Giger had taken it, and he was the one now transcending in the circuitry. Maybe he’s basking in the joy of everlasting creation alongside his own robots. One day, I’ll be there too, and it won’t be Percocets or fentanyl or MDMA, but maybe it’ll be a fall, or maybe it’ll be the last breath of my iron lungs during a peaceful night in bed. 

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Works Cited

Boniface, Sadie. “Back to Black: Amy Winehouse Biopic Reviewed by an Alcohol Expert.” The Conversation, 11 Apr. 2024, theconversation.com/back-to-black-amy-winehouse-biopic-reviewed-by-an-alcohol-expert-227609. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Giger, H. R. WWW HR Giger Com. Taschen, 2008. 

“HR Giger - the Official Website.” HR Giger - The Official Website, HR Giger Museum, 12 Dec. 2012, www.hrgiger.com/biography. 

Madahi, Doha. “Britney Spears’ Allegation of Abuse by Doctor Unlikely to End Conservatorship, Experts Say.” NBC News, NBC, 13 July 2021, www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/britney-spears-alleged-her-former-psychiatrist-was-abusive-it-probably-n1273769. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Poetry Foundation. “Sylvia Plath.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2016, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Rose, Steve. “Alien Designer HR Giger: “I Am Afraid of My Visions.”” The Guardian, The Guardian, 14 May 2014, www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/14/hr-giger-film-artist-alien-i-am-afraid-of-my-visions. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Vercillo, Kathryn. “Michelangelo Buonarroti: Art and Mental Health History.” Create Me Free, 2 Nov. 2023, createmefree.substack.com/p/michelangelo-buonarroti-art-and-mental. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

Yashi Banymadhub. “The Tortured Artist Is a Dangerous Myth. It’s the Way Creative Workers Are Treated That Causes Breakdown.” The Independent, 10 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/voices/world-mental-health-day-tortured-artist-dangerous-myth-pain-art-depression-suicide-a8576971.html. Accessed 1 Dec. 2025.

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Emiland Kray is a visual artist working primarily with book arts and game design. His work investigates the complexities of memories and dreams, by manipulating our attachment to nostalgic forms. He was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada and in 2023 he received his MFA from the University of Arizona with a portfolio of traditional watercolor, book arts, and game design. Kray was the winner of a 2025 Distinguished Book Award from the Miniature Book Society, has work in notable special collections such as the Arizona Poetry Center, University of Nevada, Reno Special Collections, and the Lilly Library in Indianapolis. Kray continues to make art with a focus on community involvement and collaborative projects, through initiatives like Troctopus Press, The Octopus Anthology, and partnerships with several non-profits and public libraries throughout the American Southwest. With a focus on accessibility, you can find many of his books in libraries around the United States and find his games free to play online.

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