Desma9-Blog3

 The early stages of reproduction were very inefficient. Books must be hand-written, narrowing written information’s span of influence. For example, Islam and its “religious knowledge” (lecture 1) was originally passed down “aurally” (lecture1) by the educated class in India called the Ulama. The Ulama were the exclusive storytellers because they were the only people who could read the few Qurans that were written. Advances in education and, specifically, the development of Gutenberg’s printing press allowed for the widespread of ideas through the mass production of these texts. Soon, the people became literate and the Quran was accessible to all. This allowed for the diversification of the Quran’s interpretations because everyone was reading rather than just the Ulama.“3600 pages per day” (lecture 1) were printed from Gutenberg’s printing press. These machines and robots, like the printing press, influence “everything we do that’s related to manufacturing” (robotics intro).


(Getty imageshttps://www.google.com/search?q=johannes+gutenberg&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS871US871&oq=johan&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3.1858j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=X08TwhmlAUlVYM)

(Britannicahttps://www.google.com/search?q=printing+oress&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS871US871&oq=printing+oress&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.2198j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&dlnr=1&sei=i2VaYtz3FrqfkPIPl6i9oAQ#dlnr=1&imgrc=72RLfbodsrStsM)


Parallels can be drawn between Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and Douglas Davis’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction.” Benjamin speaks on how the original product’s value is tarnished through the mass production of it. An interpretation of Benjamin’s claim could be that an object’s scarcity determines its worth. Mass production makes the “quality of its presence is always depreciated” (Benjamin 1). Davis mirrors these views with displaying the object’s lack of rarity. Davis claims that ”there is no longer a clear conceptual distinction between original and reproduction.” (Davis 1)


Assembly line work also had similar effects to that of Benjamin’s and Davis’s claims. Assembly line work made automobiles “accessible to anyone” (lecture 2) rather than only to the elite. The widespread ownership of automobiles normalized owning a car, thus decreasing the “authority of the object” (Benjamin 1).


(Britannicahttps://www.google.com/search?q=assembly+line&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS871US871&hl=en-US&prmd=ivbn&sxsrf=APq-WBuPu_X5C8ieia4dpdGNbPvzHEjFvw:1650091453489&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiWi7rX_Zf3AhVfKkQIHWaoC78Q_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=414&bih=722&dpr=3#imgrc=bGYyds3EVXPHpM)






Bibliography

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
Davis, Douglas. The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction.
Vesna , Victoria. Lecture 1.
Vesna , Victoria. Lecture 2.
Vesna, Victoria. Robotics Intro.



Comments

  1. Abigail TheresaApril 16, 2022 at 9:18 PM

    Hey Ayrton,

    I really like what you had to say about reproduction of content and information, because it's true. It's so much harder to reproduce content that is written down because you can't remember everything off the top of your head.

    ReplyDelete

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