Week Three: Robotics + Art

Robotics + Art

        Benjamin Walter covers a lot in his “The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, because of this I would like to focus on section XII of the reading. Section seven starts with Walter saying, “Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art.” I think that it is interesting to consider how the masses reaction towards art has changed.  Walter seems to think that a big factor is simply the sheer number of people that can watch a movie, compared to the comparative small number that view a painting, “individual reactions are predetermined by the mass audience response they are about to produce, and this is nowhere more pronounced than in the film.”

I think that this mentality of exposure is super interesting and makes me curious on what Walter would think of video games. Where the audience size is just as large as a movie, but the experiences can be vastly different, between the choices you make and your skill level. I think that he would argue it is a middle ground in a way. The audience size is the same, yet the experiences vary so much it is close to an isolated experience, much like a painting. A good example of this would be the games produced by Telltale games.

Image Sources

Movie picture Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTYpAp0q5mffTRdCA0xKLVehdryeKR7L2zTXl85R2oxFO0EwdUAVMkoQ3HDtVRwip27YDPOChoHCLFouK3tw-Y_Jx3VJtssjTAE79k4jv5i58LnFNTpiMe_rOmJ_TejiC2c2axpss8Q/s1600/2+Cleopatra+1963+hh.jpg

Telltale games Image: https://th.bing.com/th/id/Ree4bfccb9a2b9f52ae0a497165e0d03d?rik=epn%2bnS8GzmIVwg&riu=http%3a%2f%2fd1506sp6x4e9z7.cloudfront.net%2fgamasutra%2fuploads%2f639649.jpg&ehk=Pw63dBBzoPlUm3XmVAmSxqwgwPPXW%2bXCKhCnfe068LA%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw

Telltale game collection Image:  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-Jh9D-CAAAkixI.png

Sources

Benjamin Walter. (1936). The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis:1991-1995) Douglas Davis Leonardo , Vol. 28, No. 5, Third Annual New York Digital Salon. (1995), pp. 381-386

Lipson, H. (Director). (2007, March). Building "self-aware" robots [Video file]. In TED. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://www.ted.com/talks/hod_lipson_building_self_aware_robots

Brooks, R. (Director). (2003, February). Robots will invade our lives [Video file]. Retrieved April 17, 2021, from https://www.ted.com/talks/rodney_brooks_robots_will_invade_our_lives

Brooks, R. (Director). (2003, February). Robots will invade our lives [Video file]. Retrieved April 17, 2021, from https://www.ted.com/talks/rodney_brooks_robots_will_invade_our_lives