Week 3: Art + Robotics

The advent of mechanization technologies around 1900 greatly changed the landscape of society.  While the most obvious changes came in factories and the production of goods, mechanization also forever changed art.  Mechanization implies technological advances, and it is these so called advances in technology that most changed art.  For example, with digital technology photographs can now be taken and developed in a matter of seconds rather than minutes and hours. 
Modern Day Printing Factory where hundreds of copies can be
made on these giant machines.
 Hundreds of copies of a print can be made with the touch of a button. Even painting, once considered unique and one of kind can be reproduced with relative easy.  These are the changes that Douglas Davis wrote about when stating that mechanization has diminished the concepts of master and copy, as the two have virtually become one.  The processes that made it easy to tel a copy from the original now cease to be used, replaced with technology that does not affect the “quality” of the art. 
Walter Benjamin also discusses the ways in which mechanization has changed the landscape of the art world, but he takes it a step further.  While his writing suggests that he would agree with Davis, Benjamin is also a proponent of the idea that by reproducing the original work, even though the copy may look the same, one inherently changes it by removing the art from its context, its time and place in history.  A consequence of doing this is that art can now by used politically and given a new context. 
This famous poster made during Obama's presidential campaign
is a prime example of how can be politicized. 
This mechanization of art does not have to stop with the traditional mediums of art.  For example, in the movie I, Robot mechanization has been used to turn one of the ultimate works of art, the human body, in nothing but copies, as many positions in society have been filled with realistic, human like robots.
Still from I, Robot showing rows and rows
of mechanized "people".
This mechanization of man kind creates a lot of tension, unease, and mistrust throughout the movie and the support for robots of this kind is used as a political dividing point.  For these reasons, this movie is an excellent model of the exact issues Walter Benjamin discussed in his works.






Sources:
Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." (1936): n. pag. 

Davis, Douglas. "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction." Leonardo 28.5 (1995): 381-86. JSTOR. Web.

"Barack Obama "Hope" poster." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 09 Apr. 2017. Web. 23 Apr. 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Hope%22_poster>.

"Photo Gallery." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/mediaindex>.


"Printing Press Pictures and Images." Getty Images. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017. <http://www.gettyimages.com/photos/printing-press?family=creative&license=rf&phrase=printing press&excludenudity=true&sort=best#license>.

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