The metal woman is in fact the Passage, by Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito. She is the mother of a mother and child pair that debuted at Burning Man 2005.

The pair will be located at the entrance to Pier 14 in San Francisco for six months. The pier and the exhibit will open June 16 this year.

Interestingly, one of the crew on the production of the passage was none ofther than Simon Barber, one of Devicescape‘s founders and its current Chief Scientist.

More photos of her, and her currently headless, child in my Flickr stream.