Comments on week 5 readings
Readings of the week :
Steven Wilson : "Robotics and Kinetics"
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve: " Interview with Aziz and Cucher"
The readings this week were on the topic of robots and cyborgs.
Steven Wilson talks about the incresing status that is given to robots as we keep researching in the field. he says they are an "increasing importance in mundane everyday worlds such as manufacturing and entertainment". Despite teaching us little things like where the term robot came from , and the exact long list of areas reaserch is being dome in the field, the most important aspect of the text, if I may say so, is about the adaptation of robots in the human world.
Robots are faced with this question of how to intergrate their physical appearance into our world. Do we want them to be humanoid (or animal) like, so we could perceive them as friend, and maybe like our children, our creation in our own image, or do we want them to adapt any form, which will optimize its capability to do the specific tasks it is asked. Isn't that what robots are for? do things for us lazy (and lazier) humans ? I mean we do have enough people on this planet to make many friends and talk. Why do we want the streets to be more crowded ?
This goes back to the definition of robots, what are they exactly, doesn't our society, already completly rely on more or less autonomous technologies like the internet, cell phones , cars, etc...True they are not completly autonomous, they will not do anything without the human interaction, but they can be controlled by distance in some way by other humans and betray their own "master" (/owner) . A good definition in the text about robots was: "Mechanism that act on the physical world with something more than just a simple repetition" . This definition supports my previous point; machines , robots don't know better. On question that Steven Wilson raised in his text that pleased me is "What can robots teach us about what it is to be human or animal?" I thought this question was really important because when we read about such research being done, I immediately think about what humans are doing to themselves, ignorer leur prochain pour ne tenter de satisfaire leurs soif infini de nouveauté. At least I now know that some people don't just see robots as toys and slaves for their lazy consumer addicted person, but maybe as a reflection on the human purpose.
The Aziz and Cucher interview was a little related to the Wilson reading because it dealt with the exploration of the body. A&C focused on the modular and fragmented body and explained more their artistic installation backed with a strong personnal explanation of it. Steven Wilson just layed out facts and raised questions. A&C explains how their arts have been related to their life and what they try to portray in it. According to them, their work is "very fabricated, very considered" They want their work to have have at the same time the fabricated and the documentary/real look. When watching the videos of their instatllation, we con only inagine of what it must be like to be in the middle of these four screens. The images projected remind me somehow of this scientific cartoon I saw a couple times when I was a kid about a scientist and his students being shrinked and exploring the human body to learn and have fun at the same time (!) . A&C talk about this concept of representing healthy bodies, and not decaying. Cucher's experience with the HIV virus allowed him to understand better the biotechnologic research being done, which explains the style of the installation.
They also briefly talk about their previsous works like the building of bodies with regular every day tools that we can buy in stores, and adding a plastic skin on top of it. I liked this concept of creating new "lifes" with our environment. It feels so natural and right the way they explain it, to just build with what is being given.
http://chabin.laurent.free.fr/videos.htm
Steven Wilson : "Robotics and Kinetics"
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve: " Interview with Aziz and Cucher"
The readings this week were on the topic of robots and cyborgs.
Steven Wilson talks about the incresing status that is given to robots as we keep researching in the field. he says they are an "increasing importance in mundane everyday worlds such as manufacturing and entertainment". Despite teaching us little things like where the term robot came from , and the exact long list of areas reaserch is being dome in the field, the most important aspect of the text, if I may say so, is about the adaptation of robots in the human world.
Robots are faced with this question of how to intergrate their physical appearance into our world. Do we want them to be humanoid (or animal) like, so we could perceive them as friend, and maybe like our children, our creation in our own image, or do we want them to adapt any form, which will optimize its capability to do the specific tasks it is asked. Isn't that what robots are for? do things for us lazy (and lazier) humans ? I mean we do have enough people on this planet to make many friends and talk. Why do we want the streets to be more crowded ?
This goes back to the definition of robots, what are they exactly, doesn't our society, already completly rely on more or less autonomous technologies like the internet, cell phones , cars, etc...True they are not completly autonomous, they will not do anything without the human interaction, but they can be controlled by distance in some way by other humans and betray their own "master" (/owner) . A good definition in the text about robots was: "Mechanism that act on the physical world with something more than just a simple repetition" . This definition supports my previous point; machines , robots don't know better. On question that Steven Wilson raised in his text that pleased me is "What can robots teach us about what it is to be human or animal?" I thought this question was really important because when we read about such research being done, I immediately think about what humans are doing to themselves, ignorer leur prochain pour ne tenter de satisfaire leurs soif infini de nouveauté. At least I now know that some people don't just see robots as toys and slaves for their lazy consumer addicted person, but maybe as a reflection on the human purpose.
The Aziz and Cucher interview was a little related to the Wilson reading because it dealt with the exploration of the body. A&C focused on the modular and fragmented body and explained more their artistic installation backed with a strong personnal explanation of it. Steven Wilson just layed out facts and raised questions. A&C explains how their arts have been related to their life and what they try to portray in it. According to them, their work is "very fabricated, very considered" They want their work to have have at the same time the fabricated and the documentary/real look. When watching the videos of their instatllation, we con only inagine of what it must be like to be in the middle of these four screens. The images projected remind me somehow of this scientific cartoon I saw a couple times when I was a kid about a scientist and his students being shrinked and exploring the human body to learn and have fun at the same time (!) . A&C talk about this concept of representing healthy bodies, and not decaying. Cucher's experience with the HIV virus allowed him to understand better the biotechnologic research being done, which explains the style of the installation.
They also briefly talk about their previsous works like the building of bodies with regular every day tools that we can buy in stores, and adding a plastic skin on top of it. I liked this concept of creating new "lifes" with our environment. It feels so natural and right the way they explain it, to just build with what is being given.
http://chabin.laurent.free.fr/videos.htm
posted by Bastien at 7:27 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home