Week 3: Robotics and Art

For this blogpost I decided to look into robotics and art. One example of robotics and art is the Otamatone by Maywa Denki. Maywa Denki considers themselves to be an art unit and yet the Otamatone, a musical instrument with a cute, humid face is mass produced. 


This relates to Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction where he says:

‘To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art
designed for reproducibility.’

The Otamatone was not meant to be only one artwork, but was designed specifically so that everyone could have and afford one. Another example where we see reproduction of robotics is in the Disney movie Wall-E.





 At the beginning of the movie, we see Wall-E moving around broken versions of himself. Wall-E is a compassionate, humanoid robot who immediately pulls on heartstrings, and in the opening few minutes of the movie we see that he was mass produced. What we also see in the movie is how society has responded to industrialization; we have completely abandoned Earth and have surrounded ourselves with mass produced robotics so that we are completely reliant on them. There are robot teachers, the sky is a screen, and everyone is transported on floating chair-like devices. The robots in Wall-E are synonymous with the humanoid, comforting robots we see in Japanese culture. 






Images and Videos

Otamatone 　Greensleeves　オタマトーン　グリーンスリーブス. Dir. Maywa Denki. Perf. Maywa Denki. Youtube.com. YouTube, 9 Oct. 2009. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxLB70G-tRY>.

Stanton, Andrew. Wall-E and Eve. Digital image. Pixar Wiki. Fandom, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <http://pixar.wikia.com/wiki/WALL%E2%80%A2E>.

Wall•e Official Trailer. Dir. Andrew Stanton. Disney Pixar, 2008. Youtube.com. YouTube, 20 June 2008. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alIq_wG9FNk>.

References

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. N.p.: n.p., 2012. PDF.

Denki, Maywa. "Maywa Denki English Biography." 明和電機 - Maywa Denki. Maywa Denki, 05 Aug. 2016. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <http://www.maywadenki.com/biography/bio_en/>.
Human Dystopia. Dir. Andrew Stanton. Disney Pixar, 2008. Youtube.com. YouTube, 30 Aug. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1BQPV-iCkU>.

Robotics MachikoKusahara 1. Dir. Victoria Vesna. Perf. Machiko Kushara. Youtube.com. YouTube, 14 Apr. 2012. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQZ_sy-mdEU>.

"WALL·E (2008)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/>.



Comments

  1. Parvaneh ShadkamApril 23, 2017 at 11:43 PM

    Hello Kayla! I've heard about the Otamatone previously! While you do bring up the good point about the "musical instrument" being mass reproduced and being designed for that purpose, I feel like it does not get rid of its "aura" as Walter Benjamin describes in his essay. It maintains its purpose and "personality" since its purpose is to express the personality of each individual. Furthermore, you did a great job discussing the relationship between Wall-E, mass production, and society's increasing interdependence on robots. You touch on the aspect that Western society typically associates negative connotations with advancing technology, but I think you kind of confused or neglected the idea that Japanese culture promotes a positive attribute to robots.
    Once again, great job and it was a great read!

    ReplyDelete

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