Second Revolution 

I have always been intrigued as to how the robot became a booming field in our society and the influence behind this phenomenon. To think that it started with the printing press by Gutenberg in 1450, that brought new life in technology facilitating the scientific theory that then introduced the assembly line. It wasn’t until the Second Revolution where the idea of the robot boomed and was seen as a mechanism of labor. 

Water Benjamin 

Karel Capek

Walter Benjamin, a critic, radio broadcaster and essayist, argues in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” the positive influence technology had on art and how the mechanical reproduction of art can remove creativity and originality from work (Benjamin 1-20). For instance, the robot, coined by Karel Capek, came to be understood as “serf labor” or work labor. The robot introduced this idea of cybernetics, where the cyborg was created, short for cybernetic organism, that had both biological and artificial features of a human.

"Cybernetics" created this ambiance of looking at the world in a scientific way, but with art, and how information can be transmitted and processed. It also shows the collaboration between scientists and artists, how it was possible to combine the two, but also how technology can be used to create a technological innovation that changes the world. 

https://vimeo.com/41776276 

Assembly Line

One movie that comes to mind when I think of robotics and art is I,Robot starring Will Smith. To see a robot emulate exactly the human behaviors and live amongst the human world was impeccable. To think that we have the technology to actually create these robots is insane. But, the flaw or the downside of these robots in what we see in this movie is their inability to protect and posses real emotions. Yes, they have the programing of all types of emotions, but they don’t actually feel it themselves. We also see in the movie how the manufacture of these robots parallels to the industrialization period, this idea of creating a mass production to help society work.

But to finalize this weeks topic, it is interesting to note how the knowledge of production, through the industrialization (the assembly line be Ford) paved way to this innovation of the robot mechanism and how it has vastly shaped our world. This dynamic has transgressed our world into a technological one where we have become so dependent on the internet-robotics-to help us thrive on a daily basis. 

Citations

"Walter Benjamin"

http://walterbenjaminportbou.cat/sites/default/files/images/Walter%20Benjamin_0.jpg

"Assembly Line" 

http://techpinions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/assembly-line-women.jpg

"Karel Capek"

http://london.czechcentres.cz/public/galleries/8/7383/320x320__robot1.jpg?ae2f1eb4e275d3c9b8cbea48d7fe4a70

"Cybernetics" 

https://vimeo.com/41776276

"I Robot" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL6RRIOZyCM

"Second Revolution" http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Hartmann_Maschinenhalle_1868_(01).jpg