Tuesday, April 14, 2015

WEEK 3: Robotics + Art

This week’s lecture highlighted how artists envisioned a lot of robotics in relation to science. In fact, artists have been working with robotics since a very long time. It was interesting for me to learn that in many cases, art inspired technology because usually most people are under the impression that technology is primarily what drives art.

It was Karel Capek’s science fiction theatrical play that first described a “robot”. Capek’s imagination and creativity led scientists to delve deeper into the subject and successfully blend machines with biology to come up with an artificial person- a robot to efficiently assist us with different types of work. Robotics in automobile and other kinds of manufacturing have allowed for large-scale, mass production. Products, like cars, can now be made relatively inexpensively and can thus be accessible to anyone.



It is also fascinating to think that it was the television series Star Trek that inspired Martin Cooper to invent the first hand held mobile phone. The fictional devices used for voice communication in Star Trek were called “communicators” and they were what inspired Cooper to develop a new technology that would allow for mobile communication between two people in different places.




Walter Benjamin however argued that mechanical reproduction put an end to the uniqueness in the work of art and removed creativity and originality from the work. Thus, he believed that technology did not always have a positive and beneficial impact on art. The mass production of art can be the reason why today people charge such a high premium for items (garments, furniture, etc.) that are handmade and thus unique.


It is also interesting to see the difference between how robots are perceived in the West (Europe and America) as compared to the East (in particular, Japan). In the West people are highly dependent on technology and mechanization, but they view it with great suspicion. There seems to be the widespread belief that there might come a time when the human species may be seriously threatened by artificial intelligence. In contrast, robots in Japan are viewed as being less threatening and more human-like. In Japan, robots are manufactured to look less daunting and more friendly. Astro Boy, the Japanese robot with human emotions and ethics, was created soon after World War 2 and become the basis of robotics in Japan.


 

Works Cited:

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Long, Tony. 1921. “Robots First Czech In.” Wired. Web.

Tran, Phi. 2013. “Cell Phone Inventor Martin Cooper was Influenced by Start Trek.” Social Times. Web.

Vesna, Victoria. “Robotics Pt1.” Online video. YouTube. UC Online, 15 April 2012. Web. 14 April 2015.

Vesna, Victoria. “Robotics MachikoKusahara 1.” Online video. YouTube. UC Online, 14 April 2012. Web. 14 April 2015.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Lyssa,

    I like your post on robotics and art! I never really considered how America has a paranoia of robots taking over society, while Japan seems to embrace robots as more friendly, human-like contributors of society. I wonder what in history has caused these two opposing views? Anyways, I found your statement on why people pay more for hand-crafted, unique items intriguing. I agree with you that the wide-scale production of art may have caused this. However, I would like to add that it is possible that the integration of art and technology has caused this. It is easiest to manufacture technology when everything is uniform, and as technology becomes a more integral part of our lives, the things we buy become more and more the same as what other people buy.

    - Cory Williams

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