Week 3 Robotics and Art

Week 3 Robotics and Art

Mechanization has advantages and disadvantages. With the printing press's mechanical qualities that allow automation, Marcus Brunelle believes society has become more educated through the ability to disseminate  educational material. Joseph Montagna states that mechanization has also reduced the amount of mechanical labor in certain tasks such as farming, transport, and construction. Productivity and safety are increased. In their relation to me, robotic pipettors have allowed me to rapidly set up a screen of thousands compounds in my research. I have also seen medical care such as surgeries utilize robots to carry out incisions smaller than any human hand can do.

The train is one of the products of mechanization.

However this automation does come at a price. The sense of humanity is lost in general. Walter Benjamin states that the "aura" of the piece of copied art is lost due to modern techniques of art reproduction such as printing. Benjamin defines the "aura" as a description of the context and authenticity of a work. Long after Benjamin's time, other writers and film directors have criticized the loss of authenticity. Samuel Beckett, a playwright, has similar views in his work "Endgame". Endgame depicts a society that has lost its meaning due in part to the massive industrialization that arose in the 1950's. For example, elements of mechanized production such as the world's first mass produced dog food brand "Spratts medium" are used to show the drabness of life and loss of uniqueness (Beckett 13). Similarly, Arnold Schwarznegger's "The Terminator" is a movie from the 1980's that shows humankind battling mass produced robots, products of allowing industrialization too much power. At the end of the film, humankind wins the battle and thus warns viewers of giving industrialization too much power.  Thus these examples are a commentary on western society's suspicion towards the effect of industrialization on humanity's identity. The reproducibility of robots prevents them from becoming an artistic form, and only objects to be used for industry.

Spratt's dog biscuits, featured in Endgame as an element of industry destroying identity.  

 Other cultures, specifically Japan, show more optimism towards robotics and industrialization. Unlike the robotic arms that built the car I use to get to school or change the samples in my experiments, the Japanese give robotics a more humanistic and thus artistic form. This can be seen in the humanoid robots working alongside with humans as equals. For example , in the modern Japanese novel "Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World", Haruki Murakami optimistically shows humans and cyborg minds as a unique identity and culture (400).

This robot by Sony, a Japanese corporation, is humanoid in appearance and embodies robots as an artistic form.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Marxists. 1936. N.p. Web. 19  Apr  2015. <http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm>.

Beckett, Samuel, and Samuel Beckett. Endgame: A Play in One Act, Followed by Act Without Words, a Mime for One Player. New York: Grove Press, 1958. Print.

Brunelle, Marcus. "How the Printing Press Revolutionized Humanity." Scientiareview.        Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.       <http://www.scientiareview.org/pdfs/382.pdf>.

Montagna, Joseph. "The Industrial Revolution." An Interdisciplinary Approach to British Studies. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 1 Jan. 1981. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html>.

Murakami, Haruki, Ian Porter, and Adam Sims. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World.  S.l.: Naxos, 2010. Print.

Schwarzenegger, Arnold, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. The Terminator. New York: HBO Cannon Video, 1984.