Week 3: Robotics + Art
In this week’s blog post, I will be focusing on the insights gained regarding mechanization and society’s response to industrialization. Western society was initially resistant to mechanization and industrialization. In Modern Times, a movie by Charlie Chaplin, we see that the main character is part of an assembly line where he has to screw nuts onto machinery. His speed is controlled by the conveyor belt, and he struggles to keep up. He is even seen to be ‘swallowed’ by the factory’s machinery, an analogy for how mechanization has overwhelmed and consumed workers. Later in the film, we see the main character go mad. The movie depicted a popular criticism of industrialization – workers were now treated as machines, with their humanity stripped from them.
In the field of art, the view that mechanization was a negative development was supported by Walter Benjamin. He states that the ‘aura’ of works of art withers away with mechanical reproduction as the uniqueness of art is replaced with plurality of copies (Benjamin).
Looking to the future, we must first understand that culture and art play a huge role in informing our perceptions of robots and technology. In Western culture, robotics and technology is still greatly feared and even detested due to its portrayal as villains or antagonists in popular culture. Karl Čapek’s RUR is an example of this. The word ‘robot’ was coined by Čapek from the Czech word ‘robota’, meaning forced labour (Billington).
However, in other cultures such as Japan, people have taken a liking to robotics and technology. This dates back to the 17th century, where karakuri, mechanized puppets, first became popular in Japan. Over the centuries, robots and technology were widely used Japan’s theatre and art traditions, and were portrayed in a positive light (Da Silva). This clearly explains the difference between the Western and Japanese view of robotics today.
It's interesting how the perception of mechanization and industrialization can vary so much based on a society's art. Modern Times was a good example of a movie that depicts the West's perception of industrialization. Since Western culture is heavily individualistic, it would make sense that industrialization would be feared because people might see it as a movement towards the loss of individualism. Japan is a good example of the opposite: a collectivist culture that embraces robots because of how they can contribute to society; Japanese art reflects this different perception.
ReplyDelete-Daniel Barajas
When I was doing my own reading on the play "R.U.R." I also found it very interesting how that piece was able to captivate the western world and skew the image of robots into potentially evil mechanisms to this very day. When contrasting this to the Japanese and their perspective on robots, theirs differs quite a bit. The majority tend to look at life as if everything has life, probably contributing to the general acceptance of robots in society. I also liked how you tied this into the artistic aspect and how this acceptance naturally gave way to broadening the areas of where a robot can help out.
ReplyDelete-Colin Squire
I think it was really interesting how part of your blogpost focused on the negatives of technology, such as how u mentioned people being "swallowed by the factory." Many of the blogposts I have read only focused on the positives so it is interesting to see another perspective. That being said you also focused on the positives instead of being for or against advancements into technology. Subjects like this are not always as black and white as people make them out to be so seeing a middle ground is extremely important.
ReplyDelete-Scott Bauguess