Skip to main content

Week 3 - Robotics + Art

Reaching back to the Renaissance, industrialization has helped the arts thrive. As explained in Vesna's lecture videos, the printing press and the movable type revolutionized the way information could be distributed. As a result, mass production of books and newspapers was effortless, causing a rapid distribution of knowledge. Marshall McLuhan compares this past breakthrough to our current progress with information technology and predicted the world wide web. He analyzed the effect of mass media and how this level of communication allows for a village-like mindset throughout the entire world with the creation of global economy and culture.

From: myhomegadgets.com

Industrialization facilitates the accessibility of technology in order to quickly spread ideas and art. With websites like DeviantArt and Etsy, people from all over the world are able to share and sell their work. However, concerns are raised that this mass reproduction destroys the "uniqueness and authenticity" of the art, as argued by Walter Benjamin. I disagree with this claim as industrialization allows more people to enjoy the artist's work. Even many copies are distributed, it does not ruin the authenticity of the original art. Technological advancements would even make room for new potential artistic innovation, especially within the field of artificial intelligence.

Currently, computers lack the capability to solve ill-defined problems. They do excel in performing tasks that necessitates precision, but our human brains are shown to provide better accuracy with tasks such as natural language processing, as explained by Hopfield. A neural network is a framework designed after a human nervous system as it includes layers of interconnected nodes as processing units that sum up a nonlinear function.

Neural network model
From: extremetech.com

Dayhoff elaborates that as this data model gets exposed to more information, the network can be correspondingly adjusted with its weighted relationships in a process called "training". Hopefully, we could build on this structure with machine learning to one day reach a point where we could have fluid every-day conversations with our customizable operating systems. This is exemplified in the movie Her.



Future expansion in this field will definitely be based around improving the user experience and making these advancements readily available to the public. Industrialization allows artists to have this large audience to enjoy their work. Overall, I believe that society would continue to embrace future technological developments and its integration into different art forms.



Sources

Artificial neural networks are changing the world. What are they?, 12 Oct. 2015. ExtremeTech, www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NeuralNetwork.png. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Dayhoff, J. E. and J. M. DeLeo. “Artificial neural networks.” Cancer, vol. 91, no.S8, 15 Apr. 2001, pp. 1615-1635. Wiley Online Library, 17 April 2001. doi:10.1002/1097-0142(20010415)91:8+<1615::AID-CNCR1175>3.0.CO;2-L.
Global internet users rise 300 mn to 3.2 bn in 2015. Feb. 2016. MyHomeGadgets, www.myhomegadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Internet-users.jpg. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.

 "Her - Official Trailer (HD) Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams." Online video clip. Youtube, uploaded by JoBlo Movie Trailers, 7 Aug 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4.

Hopfield, J.J. "Artificial neural networks." IEEE Circuits and Devices Magazine, Sept. 1988. IEEE Xplore, doi:10.1109/101.8118.

"Robotics pt1." Online video clip. Youtube, uploaded by Victoria Vesna, 15 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRw9_v6w0ew.

"Robotics pt3." Online video clip. Youtube, uploaded by uconlineprogram, 16 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkP7oSZVkbg.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 9 - Space + Art

In this week's lecture, we focused on space exploration and how our endeavors has inspired works of fiction and various art. Contemporary space-age development really started after WW2 during the Cold War. When the Spudnik satellite was hurled into orbit by the Russians in 1957, the famous "space race" was kicked off between the US and the Soviet Union. NASA was even created in effort to invest more research in a competing military space program, along with more funding towards scientific education (uconlineprogram). This tense competition resulted in a stream of scientific achievements, leading up to placing a man on the moon in 1969. (NASA) Neil Armstrong during the moonwalk, working at an equipment storage area ( NASA ) From the 50s on during this time, many science-fiction TV shows were released that influence pop culture on space, such as Planet Stories , Jetsons , and Star Trek (uconlineprogram). The creators of these shows popularized scientific concepts suc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 6 - BioTech + Art

As artists enter into laboratories and also collaborate with biologists, a lot of interesting pieces have been fabricated. One particular project that struck out to me was Jason Davis' audio microscope that transforms light information into sounds and allows you to hear living cells. The idea itself is deeply interdisciplinary that I could see it exhibited in both a science and an art museum, especially in an educational setting for the latter option. Joe Davis' audio microscope (geneticsandculture.com) Biotech art like this validates life as an expressive medium, as it gives a deeper perspective into organisms on the cellular level. Davis' other project on inserting a map of the milky way into the ear of a transgenic mouse with DNA base pairs exposes how intricate but modifiable genetic material is. Inherently, using transgenics or selective breeding as an artistic technique can bring out the scientific beauty that is embedded within life. These type of artistic end...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 8 - Nanotechnology + Art

With the usage of nanoparticles, I believe fashion will undergo drastic transformations. As explained in this week's lecture videos, when we manipulate on the nanoscale, we can change the properties of the molecules. In particular, I was intrigued by the creation of self-cleaning fabrics. Speaking as a college student, laundry is very time consuming. When done in a rush, our clothes can even become damaged through shrinking or stains. Researchers at RMIT University have been developing a cheap nanostructure that degrades organic matter when exposed to light using "hot electrons". If this is integrated into textiles, we can merely use some sunlight to clean our clothes, saving our money and time. Not to mention, this material would also be environmentally friendly, since our clothes would be preserved longer and we won't need to waste as much water. Nanostructures grown on cotton textiles (RMIT University) < https://phys.org/news/2016-03-nano-enhanced-textiles...
1 comment
Read more