Week 3: Robotics and Art
It is hard to see how technology derived from art. However, when we dive a little deeper we find, just like Douglas Davis points out, that "there is no clear distinction now between original and reproduction in virtually any medium." Cameras, robots, computers, and most technology in general have roots that can be traced back to predecessors in the Renaissance all the way to World War II.
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| Turing played by Benedict Cumberland in The Imitation Game |
Perhaps the best example of this in recent history is Alan Turing's algorithm. Turing claimed he could visualize code, and while many contemporaries thought this was scary, we now see it as an artistic gift. In the movie The Imitation Game, a biography of Turing's life, he believed that the World War II Nazis were communicating in encrypted code using an "enciphering machine," which is a predecessor of the computer. In his mind, he was able to associate different symbols with words, which led him to be able to crack the "Enigma code" and eventually help the Allies defeat Germany.
Of course there are other components besides Turing's algorithm that lead to how robotics and technology evolved from art. Professor Vesna cites some well known examples such as Henry Ford's assembly line, which began the stigma of a mechanized workforce. That is why many cultures, such as the Japanese, create humanoid robots in an to attempt to formulate, as Professor Machiko Kusahara calls it, a "soothing balance between people and machine."
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| Henry Ford's assembly line production |
But even though technology and art have been intertwined for centuries, there is still one glaring problem that Walter Benjamin points out to us. He states that "even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking one element: its presence in time and space." Technology is desperately eager to combat this issue. I work with this company called TunesMap, which is just one solution to the problem Walter Benjamin describes. Music is a form of art, but when music is digitalized it loses its history, its purpose, and most importantly its meaning. TunesMap corrects this problem by "combining the music you listen to with live action events that happened during the artists' time." It brings back to life the world the artist lived in, and therefore the message of the song. Art, robotics, and technology are all connected. Our part, as an ever-changing society, is to recognize how to appreciate one in the context of the other.
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| Visual representation of how TunesMap gives background and context to an artist's song |
References
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.
Vesna, Victoria. “Lecture Part 2.” Robotics + Art. 21 Apr. 2019. Lecture.
Davis, Douglas. “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction.” The MIT Press, 1995. Web. 20 Apr. 2019. <http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1576221?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101286048881>.
The Imitation Game. Directed by Morten Tyldum. Performances by Benedict Cumberland and Keira Knightley. Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2015.
“TunesMap.” TunesMap, www.tunesmap.com/.
Kusahara, Machiko. "Professor Machiko Kusahara on Japanese Robotics." Robotics + Art. 21 April
2019. Lecture.
Unkown. Assembly Line Production. Photograph. 1936. https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/agile-and-test-driven-development
Time Magazine. The True Story of Alan Turing Cracking Enigma Code. Photograph. 2015. http://time.com/3609585/the-true-story-of-the-imitation-game/
TunesMap. Inventum Design. Photograph. 2018. https://www.inventumdesign.com/tunesmap-1
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