-- in order to fully understand this, the article today gives a lot of background about the effect of machines on the workplace… the reason we can even say thing like ‘we’re cogs in a giant machine’ – artists have played in lots of ways with this idea… a love/hate relationship
possibly new terms: Fordism,
Taylorism
…it’s the assembly line
irony: early ideas about machines serving people but huge anxieties about humans becoming robots/serf/mere extensions of technology
robots and ideas: the imagination of early artists and other thinkers
the ancient Greeks and Egyptians had moving statues in their temples (maybe hydraulic or pneumatic powered, or they might hide a slave in there). -> so they were used for religious displays
but a lot of what the Greeks did was forgotten: the dark ages
we start at the end of the middle ages: after the 14th century
in this period books written by the Greeks were rediscovered and this lead to an exciting flowering of the arts and sciences called the Renaissance
part of this was the discovery of a mechanistic way of looking at the world:
1) fine mechanisms: building clocks which worked either hydraulically or mechanically
-> eg astronomical clocks: used mechanisms to indicate where the planets or the sun or the moon were
-> this is using mechanisms to simulate nature
on these clocks were mechanized figures and animals which were called automata
the craftsmen that made these automata were very skilled: they were produced for rich people, basically luxury toys
think what it would be like for someone in the 16th century who saw this for the first time: they would be amazed
why?
because it was doing something that previously had only been done by humans: make music
Also: animals
eg duck made by Jacques Vaucanson in the 18th century
other 18th C automata:
-> they're trying to imitate life and sometimes trying to create life
-in myth: golem, pinocchio, pygmalion
-frankenstein
however here is a quote from 1847 by one of the most famous scientists of the day: Herman von Helmholtz:
'nowadays we no longer attempt to construct beings able to perform a thousand human actions, but rather machines able to execute a single action which will replace that of a thousand humans'
Helmholtz was referring to machine makers that were no longer trying to make the perfect human
-> but trying to mechanize part of what a human does: work and factories
what is going on in 19th C and 20th C factories?
1) human actions are being stripped down to simple parts for economic efficiency
2) these simple actions are replaced by robots -> automation of factories
this is reflected in our culture:
-eg the 1921 play by the Brothers Capek called RUR(the word 'robot' comes from the Czech for 'forced labour')
eg Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, about workers who revolt and a robot worker is introduced
The 19th and 20th centuries have been marked by dark and grim stories that show contemporary anxiety over mechanisation
Automata have always been fascinating because they make us think about what is essentially human (if anything!)
-this has changed over time:
1) music
2) eating (and excreting etc)
3) work
Modern Times.' A story of industry, of individual enterprise - humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness." (Charlie Chaplin)
taylorism:
--
his book, the Principles of Scientific Management in 1911 would change
the workplace forever. -- means of detailing a division of labor in
time-and-motion studies and a wage system based on performance. S
-- increased profits for business owners.
4) intelligence (in 20th century) -> AI
the readings talks about something called ‘Americanism’ – what does this mean? what was being ‘Americanized’?
export of American culture
Taylorism – a model of industrialism
Fordism: the assembly line
-- “rational”
-- consequences: Deskilling of workers?
Public/private -- emotiuon/sexuality relegated
to the ‘private’ realm? “sexual passion
was seen as an excess which must be expelled from the rational system of
advanced industrialized civilization”
(?) how is this accomplished?
How do artists react?
Modern Times
- reason/emotion intellect body men/women
capitalists/workers
-- emotion evacuated from philosophy?
Also from art? : design issues à precision, regularity etc.: standardized artificial symbols (like washroom signs)
-- sexuality and imagery re robots in the 1920s
-- the cog in the machine, the serf – when you look at Metropolis, think about why the robot works best as a female
-- robots are simplified humans
robots are superior to humans
automaton vs robot: text refers to this as the magical horse vs the Ford Car (what does this imply?)
19th century “ robots as individuals
Kokoschka Bellmer: Bachelor machines
-- surrealist objects? Blowup dolls?
-- what is the source of the fear of technology? Where is this fear displaced in Metropolis?
Benjamin: filmmaker as surgeon and
painter as magician
-- moving away from Surrealists’ concerns and toward a more Brechtian
approach” feeling vs reason
-- work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction
Sloanism – choice
marketing