hanna_wittmack_DESMA09_blog_03

-
illustration of the first printing press 

The development of new technologies leads to the progression of human “speed”. According to national geographic, “The advent of industrial development revamped patterns of human settlement, labor, and family life”. Industrialization has changed all aspects of life over the years, from how we think about building parts to what we see as base products to work off of. It has especially changed how we spread information. In the beginning the printing press made it possible to mass produce and have a wide distribution of knowledge, and as time has continued computers have only made that distribution faster.

"Technology the death of art?"



Some authors plague industrialization with the blame of removing individuality from art and culture. One of those authors is Walter Benjamin who stated “the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition”. He views the use of mechanics in the art world as taking away the “aura” of the piece. Similarly to Benjamin another author named Douglas Davis wrote that using technology makes it so that there “is no longer a clear  conceptual distinction between original and reproduction in virtually any medium”. Both believe that industrialization takes the human touch away from the uniqueness of art and culture.

I am Mother movie cover

Then we get to the middle ground between human and machine, otherwise known as the cyborg. Many media sources have popularized the idea that something can be part machine and part human, using the famous example of frankenstein. Tv shows and movies use the cyborg to draft possible futures where robots and humans live together. Including “I am Mother” which brings up the possibility of a robot caring for a human much like a mother would her child. It begs questions of what makes us human? And will the future hold an expansion of human qualities to the technology that surrounds us today?


Citations:

Davis, Douglas. “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (an Evolving Thesis: 1991-1995).” Leonardo, vol. 28, no. 5, 1995, p. 381., https://doi.org/10.2307/1576221. 

Fear, David. “'I Am Mother' Review: Dystopic Sci-Fi with a Maternal Twist.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 7 June 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/i-am-mother-movie-review-netflix-844140/. 

Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich, and Michael Marrinan. Mapping Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Digital Age. Stanford University Press, 2003. 

National Geographic Society. “Industrialization, Labor, and Life.” National Geographic Society, 9 Dec. 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/industrialization-labor-and-life/12th-grade/. 

PEIM, NICK. “Walter Benjamin in the Age of Digital Reproduction: Aura in Education: A Rereading of ‘the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.’” Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 41, no. 3, 2008, pp. 363–380., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2007.00579.x. 

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 14, 2022 at 8:39 PM

    Hi Hanna, your post really targets a key idea of how industrialization changes art. I agree that media has popularized ideas of machines and humans existing together and we can see that in films and TV shows. For example the TV show Westworld is a science fiction narrative about robotic hosts and artificial consciousness. I think the prevalence of robotics in art forms shows how much it has influenced our society. For me it is really interesting when I see any shows or movies that challenge what we know or conceptualize about humans, robotics, and technology interacting.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

hanna_wittmack_DESMA9_Blog_07

-
Image
  NanoTech + Art:  This week we looked into the development of nanotech over the years and analyzed its connections to art. The term nanotech was coined by Japanese professor and scientist Norio Taniguchi¹ to describe the process scientists have developed to manipulate at the scale of a single atom. Nano is the greek root for dwarf and tech is an abbreviation for technology hence technology used to work with extremely small scales. So small in fact, that a single nanometer is approximately three atoms long². Seen below (Figure 1) is a diagram that shows what scale a nanometer would fall under; between a singular protein and the size of a virus.  Figure 1:  1 *, Name. “Size-Comparison-Bio-Nanoparticles Nanometer Scale Comparison Nanoparticle Size Comparison Nanotechnology Chart Ruler.” Wich Research Lab , 3 Aug. 2017, https://www.wichlab.com/nanometer-scale-comparison-nanoparticle-size-comparison-nanotechnology-chart-ruler-2/. While the technology has been developing ...
Read more

hanna_wittmack_DESMA09_Blog08

-
Image
Space is the zone beyond the earth's atmosphere that is considered a vacuum, where there is no air to breath or atoms to move light.¹ Shown in the video “Powers of ten”(Figure A), space is infinitely bigger than any person could imagine. They are able to show this by continuously zooming out by powers of ten starting at one square meter². After watching the video, the meaning of life seemed to have a significantly less weight to it. A majority of people know that space is a part of the large unknown void that exists beyond reach, but a few scientists and engineers believe it can be as close as a simple structure. There are proposals for a space elevator(Figure B) that would lift mass out of earth's atmosphere against gravity.³ The main idea is to use a cable connected at one end to the earth, and at the other end to a satellite that is propelled forward with acceleration to move at the same rate as earth's rotation⁴. While that may sound crazy, there are many people and sc...
Read more

hanna_wittmack_DESMA09_blog02

-
Image
 Tuesday April 5, 2022 Lifeguard Sketch in 2pt perspective Throughout my entire life my passions have always been both math and art, and I have struggled to find common ground between them. For the longest time I was convinced that art was an entirely creative system and math always had a right answer, but when I started to study the formal drawing styles of architecture I have found commonalities between them. Through school, internships, and on site drawing I continue to develop an understanding for the interaction between math and art.  DaVinci's Virtuvain Man  Pictured above is the vitruvian man, drawn and conceptualized by Leonardo DaVinci.The Vitruvian man is an image of a man superimposed upon himself and enveloped within a circle and a rectangle. The scale of the geometries allow for the artistic aspect of the drawing to connect to the mathematical sense of proportion. DaVinci took the ideas of proportion and “ideal” senses of measure and applied them to the art w...
Read more