ATongue_Desma9 - Robotics + Art

 Henry Ford introduces the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. 



“Fordism” sparked mass production and consumerism on a global scale. Workers became cogs in the wheel of industrialization and many feared societies were losing their humanity. The term robot comes from the word robata which means “work” in many Slavic languages. The robatas were the time a serf had to give for his lord. Robots are understood as a subordinate with no free will. Many movies of the 1980s sought to expose industrialization and show the horrors of effects caused by industry and capitalism. Blade Runner is an example of this film.



 The film explores the story of future Los Angeles where humans are synthesized to work on space colonies.  These synthetic humans were called replicants. A group of the replicants escape and return to earth, thus bringing to motion the. Events of the story. “The replicants stand for capitalism’s oppressive features and, to a lesser degree, rebellion against exploitation. The Tyrell Corporation invents replicants to have a controllable labor force that will perform difficult and dangerous tasks. Similarly, capitalism today makes individuals into machines disciplined to fit into the labor system” (Kellner). 



According to Walter Benjamin, “for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment.” Film in modern society gives us an insight into the reality that we have not seen before in the history of art. Film allows things to be presented in ways that reflect modern society, Blade Runner brings to light the prediction of how society would eventually end up being something that modern-day. Michi Trota writes of his disappointment in the prediction and its accuracy stating that the world today is a “dystopian landscape shaped by corporate influence and interests, mass industrialization’s detrimental effect on the environment” (Barnett). 



Barnett, David. “Are We Living in a Blade Runner World?” BBC Culture, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20191111-are-we-living-in-a-blade-runner-world. 

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Translated by J. A. Underwood, Penguin Books, 2008.

“Blade Runner.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Apr. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner. 

ComicBook. “Blade Runner 2049: An Original Replicant Rumored to Return.” Movies, Comicbook.com, https://comicbook.com/movies/news/blade-runner-2049-original-replicant-cameo-return/. 

Eschner , Kat. “In 1913, Henry Ford Introduced the Assembly Line: His Workers Hated It.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Dec. 2016, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/one-hundred-and-three-years-ago-today-henry-ford-introduced-assembly-line-his-workers-hated-it-180961267/. 

 Kellner, Douglas. “Jump Cut a Review of Contemporary Media.” "Blade Runner" by Douglas Kellner, Flo Leibowitz, and Michael Ryan, https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC29folder/BladeRunner.html. 

Suderman, Peter. “Blade Runner's 2019 Los Angeles Helped Define the American City of the Future.” Vox, Vox, 2 Oct. 2017, https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/2/16375126/blade-runner-future-city-ridley-scott. 

Wong Kin Yuen. “On the Edge of Spaces: ‘Blade Runner’, ‘Ghost in the Shell’, and Hong 

Kong’s Cityscape.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, 2000, pp. 1–21, 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4240846. Accessed 16 Apr. 2022.

 

 

Comments

  1. Danielie RamirezApril 17, 2022 at 9:33 PM

    I thoroughly enjoyed reading your input on the relationship between robotics and art. I particularly found interest in your commentary on film's potential to create conversation about the future of technology. Your 'Blade Runner' example perfectly captivates the way in which art can be used to shape the narrative of robotics and tech.

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