Week 3 Blog: Robotics + Art

Historical events are able to mold both the present and the path of current events through establishing technological inventions that contribute to the times of the industrial age and progressively today. This can be seen through the impact of the printing press which sparked mass assembly production and allowed for the flourishing of creativity through writing in print as well as a technological advancement that also progressed the spread of science and knowledge overall. 

Printing Press

As a writer, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, demonstrates the cooperation of science and literature in a more global context. His manifesto brings forth the perspective that technology is an art form in and of itself - he describes this outlook through devising a poem on the automobile. This dialogue of speed through automobiles seeps into the interrelation of fascism and its influence on the creation of robotics.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in Automobile in 1908

Walter Benjamin suggests that mechanical reproduction halts the surge of uniqueness or “aura”. Benjamin explains that originality is in turn tarnished upon the culmination of mechanical reproduction. To Benjamin, time and space can not withstand mechanical reproduction and hence degrades its authenticity and circumstances a loss of aura.

Walter Benjamin: Art, Aura and Authenticity

The industrial age ushered in fast paced production via machinery and manufacturing. As such, this is seen in robotics and art. The introduction of robotism, analyzed by Karel Capek, suggested how workers and laborers have essentially become machinery, or robots. In this way, art presented how the industrial age began to superimpose a culture of machinery as well as a metaphoric robotism within workers. In all, mechanization and mass production influenced the presence of robotics but as did computers and the ideas of cybernetics.

References: Sources + Images (8)

Benjamin, W. (2008). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London;

Penguin.

Davis, D. (1995). The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991-1995). The MIT Press.

Keuning, S. (n.d.). Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in Automobile in 1908. artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Pinterest.com. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/499407046155420011/.

Lehmann-Haupt, H. E. (n.d.). Printing Press - Johannes Gutenberg. Britannica.com. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johannes-Gutenberg/Printing-of-the-Bible.

McLaverty-Robinson, A. (2013). Walter Benjamin: Art, Aura and Authenticity. ceasefiremagazine.co.uk. thearcadesproject.tumblr.com. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/walter-benjamin-art-aura-authenticity/.

Vesna, V. (2022, April). Lecture Part 1. Robotics + Art. Los Angeles; Canvas.

Vesna, V. (2022, April). Lecture Part 2. Robotics + Art . Los Angeles; Canvas.

Vesna, V. (2022, April). Lecture Part 3. Robotics + Art. Los Angeles; Canvas.