To celebrate the venue’s fifth anniversary, SC-Club in Nantes, France, has hired two robotic strippers to perform alongside their human dancers.

The robotic duo will be performing pole dancing routines over the coming month for the enjoyment of the strip club’s patrons.

Clad in heels with what appears to be a surveillance camera for a head, the bots have their metal figures overlaid with shapely feminine parts from plastic mannequins, although some of  their metal skeletons are still visible. They are able to grind and gyrate around a pole, mimicking the movements of a pole-dancer.

British artist Giles Walker, who designed the robots, has been touring and loaning them out since their first appearance in 2018. Robotic strippers made their first-ever debut during the CES technology conference in Las Vegas in 2018 at the Sapphire Gentleman’s Club.

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Walker has said the robots aimed to “play with the notion of voyeurism,” posing the question of “who has the power between the voyeur and the observed person”.

Speaking about the robotic additions, SC-Club owner Laurent Roue told Reuters: “For us, it’s a wink, a homage in a way to robotics.” However, he said it is unlikely that robots are going to replace human dancers anytime soon. “We need something human – warmth, physical contact – and this is really putting together opposites,” he added. Roue said he has no plans to replace the club’s ten human performers with robots.

While many are concerned with robots taking their jobs, SC- Club dancer Lexi does not share their fear. “They won’t change our sector,” she said. “They won’t replace us. We’re not in a vulgar job. It’s an artistic job. It’s something beautiful, and robots won’t change that.”