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Week Three: Art and Robotics





When I think about robotics, I tend to think about Artificial Intelligence or at least very advanced robots and machines like the things you see in science fiction. It is something that is deep into the field of math, science, and engineering. I think that is a common conception that many people have, however there is so much more to robotics than just that. In Professor Vesna's first lecture, she discusses how influential industrialization and mass production is on art and how influential art is on robotics. According to Vesna, the idea of robots came out of theater and later film. 
For there to be the platform for people to see things about robots and robotics through film, there was the need for mass production. It started with information. Jeremy Norman discusses the  history of information and recognizes the drastic change after the invention of the moveable type and printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. As things became mass produced there was the ability for information to be spread across much larger numbers of people. 


Information was something that could now be massed produced but also the mass production of art was also necessary. Industrialization provided a path for not just mass products, but mass culture to be spread. The invention of film need to mass produced ideas of many things including robotics. In another sense though, mass production brought an end to certain aspects  of art that are deemed critical. Walter Benjamin discusses mechanical reproduction and argues that it destroyed the “aura” of art which is its uniqueness, tradition, and authenticity. And although Benjamin argued this during the 1930s, this idea is still something prominent in the art world more recently. Douglas Davis in the 1990s suggests a similar problem. Davis says “he dead replica and the living, authentic original are merging” as there is no clear distinction between the two anymore.  

This idea of mass production continues to today with our even more advanced ideas about robotics and how we can use Artificial Intelligence in our lives. We see it in our real lives with the advancements of certain projects like Sofia the A.I. It is also apparent in many science fiction films. In the film Her (2013), the main character falls in love with his new virtual assistant who is powered by A.I. A significant point in the film is when he finds out that the software in his personal assistant is talking to thousands of others and has “fallen in love” with many of them. I think that this film really calls attention to the fact that mass production, just as with art, there is no “aura” or uniqueness to what you have, even if it is something that feels like love. 

 References 
Barnard, C. & Jonze, S. (2013). Her [Motion Picture]. 

 Benjamin, W. (1936). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. London: Penguin Books.

Davis, D. (1995). The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991-1995). Leonardo, 28(5), 381-386. doi:10.2307/1576221

Norman, J. (2004). History of Information. Retrieved April 21, 2019, from http://www.historyofinformation.com/narrative/index.php

Vesna, V. (2019). Art and Robotics. [Video Lecture]. Retrieved from https://cole2.uconline.edu/courses/1067208/pages/unit-3-view?module_item_id=26086628. 


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