stellasDESMA9



When printing came to the west in the 1500s the mass production of books and newspapers led to the rapid spread of knowledge. Despite it's benefits this was also considered detrimental to good study habits with books reaching numbers that could not be read in a lifetime. Printing enabled dialogue that between science, technology and culture later led to the second industrial revolution with the mechanization of labor. This led to robots that mimic humans and are able to replace humans in production lines and develop empathetic responses. The theme of the inevitable de-humanization was perfectly portrayed in the science fiction movie, Blade Runner (1982) where bioengineered beings in a dark California, portray a bleak future which questions the effect of technological progress on mankind. Walter Benjamin had concerns and his argument was that art inevitably reflects the historical time in which it is created. With industrialization comes a new feature: the reproducibility of artistic images. He mentions the lithograph but also the photograph and film allows an original to be copied many times. What he called the ‘aura’ of a unique object and along with it tradition, is replaced by the mass production of art. Art is no longer something contemplated by the viewer, but instead is form of distraction in which we can be mindlessly caught up with others.



The idea of a robot is of a mechanical slave that serves us. However, in practice, these fantasies haven’t come true. They have to be programmed by engineers so they can run with hardly any supervision and can displace workers. 
Even without such negative effects, industrialization makes us increasingly dependent on machines. All seems fine whilst they work but deprived of power and we see how helpless we are without them.


Through industrialization we have come to imagine the physical world as if it is something that is simply there to serve us. We are only just waking up to the fact that the physical world is something which is finite and upon which we absolutely depend. One could also say that industrialization has given us a distorted image of our own power and freedom that makes us reluctant to accept the limits of a human life, or see the world as something other and more than a resource for our own consumption. 













Sources: 
Hong, Dennis. "My Seven Species of Robot -- and How We Created Them." Dennis Hong: My Seven Species of Robot -- and How We Created Them | TED Talk | TED.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
http://www.ted.com/talks/dennis_hong_my_seven_species_of_robot.html

Hanson, David. "Robots That "show Emotion"." David Hanson: Robots That "show Emotion" | TED Talk | TED.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017. http://www.ted.com/talks/david_hanson_robots_that_relate_to_you.html


"Robotics MachikoKusahara 1." YouTube. N.p., 14 Apr. 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2017. https://youtu.be/xQZ_sy-mdEU


"Thirteen Advanced Humanoid Robots for Sale Today." Smashing Robotics. N.p., 16 Apr. 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2017. https://www.smashingrobotics.com/thirteen-advanced-humanoid-robots-for-sale-today/

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