Week 3: Robotics and Art

            Art and robotics are often seen as separate, but some of the most amazing pieces of functional art incorporate robotics in its construction. However, before delving deeper into the links between robotics and art, it is prudent to talk about how the industrial revolution led on to the development of robotics. The assembly line emerged from the industrial revolution to increase production of products. Originally people were employed but today they are often robots. This is most apparent in automobile assembly lines. Despite robots replacing humans, some aspects will always require a human’s hand.

Tesla car assembly line

            Car designers exist today to design the bodywork of a car and their artworks are created by robots. These designers are often considered artists as Dr. Hufnagl, former director of the International Design Museum Munich, says “the automobile is not simply regarded as a functional high-tech construction built by engineers…it is indeed viewed first and foremost as an object of art experienced with the senses, through the designer's rendering of form, materials and colour”. In this way, the bodywork of a mass-produced car is, in a way, a piece of art. However, not everyone shares this point of view. Walter Benjamin argues that art is distinguished by the “ritual” in which it was produced and because of its “ritual” is different from copies. This argument I find difficult to accept as in the case of the car designer, his art is only expressed in the assembly line where hundreds of pieces are made, yet the “ritual” is the same for all of them. Each of the cars on the assembly line can be regarded as an “original” through the common “ritual” of being produced by robotics.

Poster for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey

            Additionally, western society is wary of close connections between man and machine. Whether it was fear of becoming a cog in the assembly line during the industrial revolution, or artificial intelligence controlling humans as seen in movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, these fears led people to distance themselves from machines. Thus, some may not consider artworks produced by robots, as in the case of car designers, to be art as they delineate a clear divide between humans and machines. I believe that one should not exclude works made by machines just because a human did not have a hand in the entirety of an artwork’s production. Sometimes art can only be expressed through robotics and mass production.

References

Bangle, C. (2002). Great Cars are Great Art. TedTalk.

Benjamin, W. (1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Davis, D. (1995). The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991-1995). Leonardo, 28(5), 381. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1576221

DeMorro, C. (2014). Belgian Factory Workers Beg For Tesla Takeover | Gas 2. Gas 2. Retrieved 23 April 2018, from https://gas2.org/2014/12/26/belgium-factory-workers-beg-tesla-takeover/

Glamour Space Odyssey Poster And Amazing Ideas Of 2001 A Space Odyssey Poster Posters 19 - Best Posters. (2018). Togomeetings.com. Retrieved 23 April 2018, from http://www.togomeetings.com/100669/space-odyssey-poster.html/glamour-space-odyssey-poster-and-amazing-ideas-of-2001-a-space-odyssey-poster-posters-19

Knuth, D. (1974). Computer Programming as an Art. Communications Of The ACM, 17(12), 667-673.

Red Dot Design Award: The art of car design. (2004). Red Dot. Retrieved 23 April 2018, from https://en.red-dot.org/408.html

Verborgh, R. (2013). Programming is an Art. Ruben Verborgh. Retrieved from https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2013/02/21/programming-is-an-art/