Blog Three: Robotics and Art
Creativity, technology, and art are all interconnected. This week, we learned about robotics’ influence on art and how this mechanization has impacted our lives and the world, in both helpful and harmful ways. Starting almost 1000 years ago, the Chinese created the printing press, which was later invented in the West by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450, leading to the scientific method, the Renaissance, assembly line production, and the Industrial Revolution (Vesna).
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| A photo of Frankenstein and his bride from The Bride of Frankenstein (“The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)” |
I thought it was particularly interesting that during the time of Micheal Faraday, a chemist and physicist known for his contributions to the field of electromagnetism, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein (Vesna). The protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, creates life through experiments and ends up with a “monster” (Shelley). I took an English class at UCLA that was Frankenstein-themed: we read the original novel and Frankenstein of Baghdad and watched multiple movies, including Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein (Pfeiffer). These films portray the dangers, but also the amazing capabilities of, mechanization.
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| A photo of Ford assembly line workers building a car (“Celebrating the Moving Assembly Line in Pictures”) |
In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin argues that the uniqueness, or “aura,” of art is tainted by mechanical reproduction (Benjamin). As seen with inventions like Henry Ford’s assembly line technique, mechanization became much easier and quicker. However, as Professor Vesna noted, it also created many problems, such as people being replaced by machines.
Whereas people such as Benjamin think the reproducibility of art diminishes its value, in “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction” by Douglass Davis, he conveys that the “forger…argues that his work brings pleasure in the same measure of the copied master” and that some even “improve on the ‘originals’” (Davis 383).
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| A photo of the Japanese animation “AstroBoy” (“Astro Boy (TV Series 2003–2004)”) |
This mechanization has led to the creation of technology, such as robots, humanoids, and automata. Robots also exist in popular culture, such as in the Japanese animation “AstroBoy.” Robots can be human’s “friends,” as Professor Vesna said.
Works Cited
“Astro Boy (TV Series 2003–2004).” IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387719/. Accessed 14 April 2022.
“Celebrating the Moving Assembly Line in Pictures.” Ford Media Center, 12 September 2013, https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/features/celebrating-the-moving-assembly-line-in-pictures.html. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Davis, Douglas. “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991-1995).” Leonardo, vol. 28, no. 5, 1995, pp. 381–86, https://doi.org/10.2307/1576221. Accessed 15 Apr. 2022.
Pfeiffer, Lee, and Michael Barson. “Bride of Frankenstein | film by Whale [1935] | Britannica.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bride-of-Frankenstein. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018.
“The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).” IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026138/. Accessed 14 April 2022.
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf. Accessed 14 April 2022.
Vesna, Victoria. (2022). “Industrialization, Robotics, Kinetic/Robotic Art” DESMA 9. Class lecture at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, April 11, 2022.
Hello Hailey! Forgive me for beginning my commentary at the very end of your post, but I'm so glad you mentioned Astro boy. I remember watching the 2009 movie release when I was about 10-years-old so thank you for that little bit of nostalgia. At the time, I was into superheroes and cartoons, so this movie was right around my alley. Don't get me wrong; I still love superheroes and certain cartoons (courtesy of Marvel), but I'm more so into a good storyline now. That said, what intrigues me most about that movie is how society has changed since its release, which can be attributed to the plethora of paradigm shifts that took place over the last decade. I mean, we now have robots doing almost everything, which is synonymous to the plot in the movie. Nowadays, there's so much art featuring robots but as you noticed, this arises largely in media. I noted that you specifically touched on older media, namely, "The Bride of Frankenstein", which I've heard was a pretty good film for its time. Fun fact: Frankenstein is the name of the scientist, not the monster. While I haven't exactly watched the movie, I know it focuses on the horror genre, and essentially made robots seem bad. I'm sure this had something to do with the uprising of luddites but it also shows how the way people view robots has changed. As I said earlier, robots have changed our lives, primarily for the better, and with it, so has the way they are viewed. I would argue that at fault for this is media, but that is a discussion for another day. Still, here's a question I thought would be of interest to you: With the emergence of new technology, how do you think robots will be perceived in the next decade? If you find this question interesting, you might enjoy reading Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity", which essentially touches on a well-supported theory about technology in the future.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, I enjoyed reading your post. Keep up the good work!