Robotics & Art

This week we learned about the connection between kinetic art and robotics and how the have been influenced by movements and renaissances of the past. The era of Industrialization lead to a revolution and peak of knowledge production which created mechanization which eventually led to more people becoming aware and influenced by creations in art, music, religion, philosophy and science to name a few.

(The Renaissance Road)

Mass production in the industrial revolution was at the forefront of these innovations and what is to be held responsible for people having jobs, getting paid well, making objects and ideas available to larger audiences, and inevitably leading the way to where we are today technologically.

Personally, what I find most intriguing is how the assembly line was created to increase production and jobs for the masses in the past and now today, the same assembly line is looking at its near extinction. With the evolution of mechanical production, workers are being replaced by mechanical robots - dismantling the assembly line all together. Watching this evolution take place in front of our eyes is quite a sight when it was prophesied all the way back in the 1940s. 

The assembly line creation was used best by Henry Ford through his mass production of vehicles better seen in the video below which states Ford was able to produce vehicles in one tenth the time it used to take to build their infamous car the Model T. 

Nikola Tesla stood out to me and so did the idea of how he developed the idea for smartphone technology all the way back in 1901 but rarely gets credit for it. Another invention you may be familiar with is wireless communication aka Wifi that also wouldn't be possible without him and knowledge he gained from mechanization and the mass production of knowledge. It's surprising that not too many people know much about Tesla (besides that cars are now being named after him) so you can read more about him in brief here.

(Tesla who developed the AC Electrical System)

Lastly, the connection between the computing world and the art world and how it relates to mechanization is clearly described in Walter Benjamin's book "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production."  Benjamin's prediction of mechanization stripping our minds and societies of uniqueness and authenticity could never be more correct and horrifying. Mass producing knowledge in the past was to spread knowledge and ideas and inspire, now - technology and robotis are removing that part of our creative development by thinking and creating for us. Expanding on this philosophy I highly recommend watching Robot's invading our lives by Rodney Brooks which describes how robotics are introduced into our lives simply and then slowly by slowly before we know it, robotics is found in everything we do from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep.

(How Big Will the Internet of Things Be?)

Sources:

 CarDataVideo. "Ford Model T - 100 Years Later." YouTube. YouTube, 2008. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

 "Datafloq - Connecting Data and People." Datafloq. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

 "Robots Will Invade Our Lives." Rodney Brooks:. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Yale - Modernism Lab Essays. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

"8 Things You Didn’t Know About Nikola Tesla." PBS. PBS. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

"///KIDMOGRAPH." Tumblr. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.