Week 3: Robotics and Art (Industrialization)

As we continue on in these lectures we continue to see how art is not only influenced and intertwined with science and math but also in robotics. It seems to me that it doesn't play as big of a role, but nevertheless it does. Professor Vesna states how artist have been highly influenced by robotics and mass production. However, with mass production it takes away the uniqueness in the art. Art is rare and when there is a lot of something it takes away the significance of whatever it is. Walter Benjamin talks about this in his work and says, "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element in presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be". Benjamin states how it takes away from the uniqueness but when I think about it doesn't take away the beauty in what the original artist had in mind. It just makes the artwork more applicable to other people and I think that is where mass production is a great thing. 

In 1995, Douglas Davis wrote in the Leonardo Journal how the advancement in technology and mass production have enhanced the abilities of artist. This contradicts what Benjamin stated nearly 60 years before Davis. Davis states how the enhanced technology hasn't limited them but it has enhanced their abilities, which allow them to create new work in which wasn't possible before. 

While I can understand both sides it is hard not to favor in what Davis believes in due to the fact of how far our technology has come since the first industrial revolution. I recently went to the Getty Museum and when I was looking at all the pictures, it was remarkable to see how the technology had transformed what I was looking at. Thats what Davis was talking about. It has enhanced everything in what we do today. 

The production of machinery has continued to be enhanced since the early industrial revolutions. The movies that are now made with robots in our future is what comes to mind when I saw todays lecture title. I think it is cool how the idea of robotics was first thought of hundreds of years ago. From the chinese inventing the printing press to actual robots made today and cars. Maybe one day it will be like the movie I Robot. 

Sources:

Benjamin, Walter . The Work Of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction. Prism Key Press, 2010.        50. print.

Davis, Douglas. "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991-                1995)."Leonardo. 28.5    (1995): 381-386. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.                                                           

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576221>.

Vesna, Victoria. "Robotics Art." DESMA 9. UC Online. . Lecture.

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/window/