This week’s topic we covered robotics and art. Heather Dewey-Hagborg uses 3-D printing to recreate the facial structures of random DNA samples collected through random hair strands or used gums (Ghose 2015). Here we see how robotics and art interact to produce an interesting art exhibit.

Professor Vesna goes into great detail regarding how knowledge was dispersed throughout the world. With the creation of the printing press we see that books, knowledge, can be mass produced and therefore reaching to people around the world (Vesna Lecture 3). The printing press allows individuals to take up a specific task and repetitively carry them out without any meaning. Workers mindlessly recreate without any attachment to what they are producing. As a sociology major we have learned this to be called alienation. According to Marx, workers go through four steps of alienation where the worker gains a new identity, becomes an extension of the product, his actions belong to production and he/she no longer interacts with anyone (Cox 1998). Although knowledge and products are going to reach many people across the world, it comes at a cost to the individual making it. Machiko Kushara argues that this type of production is the emergence of a new culture.

We can tie in what Walter Benjamin was arguing in that mechanical production puts an end to uniqueness of art (1936). It separates how art is traditionally made but most importantly how authentic it is. Benjamin says that instead of art being produced due to ritual, it’s being reproduced because of politics (2). Mass production devalues what is being made but most importantly reshapes the meaning behind art. However in film mechanical production is significant. It requires individuals to be more emotionally invested into what they are viewing and can capture various emotions and perspectives that can’t be captured through picture. 

Citations:

Aswitha. "Robotics." 4CAST. CAST, 16 July 2014. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. <http://www.the4cast.com/robotics/>.

Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." (1936): 1-7. Print.

Cox, Judy. "AN INTRODUCTION TO MARX'S THEORY OF ALIENATION." AN INTRODUCTION TO MARX'S THEORY OF ALIENATION. International Socialism, 1 July 1998. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. <http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj79/cox.htm>.

Ghose, Tia. "Bio-Art: 3D-Printed Faces Reconstructed from Stray DNA." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. <http://www.livescience.com/50146-art-genetic-data-privacy.html>.

"Henry Ford’s Assembly Line Turns 100." Here Now RSS. Trustees of Boston University, 16 Oct. 2013. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. <http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/10/16/assembly-line-anniversary>.