The automatic might be seen to have certain utopic associations. In some versions of a perfect world, everything would be automated, and we wouldn't have to do anything. But in this vein, what does it take away from us to make a process automatic?
It also brings to mind Automats ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat ), where you were served diner food by putting coins in a slot to open a little door and get whatever dish you wanted
Since automatic has become so much about the machine and the mechanical process (read labor) I would say it might be interesting to take a look at the "automatic" human processes (breathing, reflex) and perhaps draw some connections through or around labor and industrialization, though that path might be too well worn.
I'd write on those pizza vending machines in the v-dub - automatic, but healthy?
I think, going on the idea of the reflex thing above, talking about automatic social tics and reflexes would be interesting, too. Kindof fishtails with the assumed and the instant, though.
Are you going to get into the automaton? There's so much great robot stuff going on right now. If you look up big dog, from boston something, boston robotics? i dunno, anyways, big dog, it's this big walking robot, four legs, that walks for real. Like you can shoot it, kick it, it'll adjust its balance. So now DARPA's trying to get the same place to develop a pack hunting AI for the robots, because they think that too much military personnel time would be taken up remotely piloting them. How scary is that. They will have guns, and a robotic pack hunting AI. We might as well just leave the keys under the mat and climb in the stupid battery pods, it's only a matter of time now.
To get to some stranger stuff, I know there's a whole genre of automatic porn, like robots, humanoid or no, with various penetrating things attached that move in different ways, interacting with humans in front of a camera.
I bet there's some interesting social dynamics in who uses manual, as opposed to automatic, transmissions anymore. You have to ask, unless you're buying a lamborghini, or something like that, so who really wants a stick?
If you're looking for a sort of utopian take on the automatic--specifically the cybernetically automatic, characterized by feedback-directed learning--I would turn to Norbert Wiener's _The Human Use of Human Beings_.
The early history of computing is also pretty interesting, as is the history of automata as toys for the bourgeoisie.
Commodities, fetishes, souvenirs, relics, rubbish. What theories help us think about things? In this course we will read Victorian travelers on West African "fetish," Michael Taussig on his imagined cocaine museum, Susan Stewart on longing and souvenirs, Freud on shiny noses, Marx on tables, Annette Weiner on the similarities between gift and commodity exchange, Mary Douglas on dirt, D.W. Winnicott on string, and Arjun Appadurai on the idea of the social lives of things. The singularization of things, the ways in which history and memory are stored in real and imagined objects, the commodification of the human body, the animation of the inanimate, utopian recycling, gleaning, found objects as art and craft: we will consider a broad range of theoretical issues in our readings and in projects that put them to quirky use.
5 comments:
The automatic might be seen to have certain utopic associations. In some versions of a perfect world, everything would be automated, and we wouldn't have to do anything. But in this vein, what does it take away from us to make a process automatic?
It also brings to mind Automats ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat ), where you were served diner food by putting coins in a slot to open a little door and get whatever dish you wanted
Since automatic has become so much about the machine and the mechanical process (read labor) I would say it might be interesting to take a look at the "automatic" human processes (breathing, reflex) and perhaps draw some connections through or around labor and industrialization, though that path might be too well worn.
--Evan.
I'd write on those pizza vending machines in the v-dub - automatic, but healthy?
I think, going on the idea of the reflex thing above, talking about automatic social tics and reflexes would be interesting, too. Kindof fishtails with the assumed and the instant, though.
Are you going to get into the automaton? There's so much great robot stuff going on right now. If you look up big dog, from boston something, boston robotics? i dunno, anyways, big dog, it's this big walking robot, four legs, that walks for real. Like you can shoot it, kick it, it'll adjust its balance. So now DARPA's trying to get the same place to develop a pack hunting AI for the robots, because they think that too much military personnel time would be taken up remotely piloting them. How scary is that. They will have guns, and a robotic pack hunting AI. We might as well just leave the keys under the mat and climb in the stupid battery pods, it's only a matter of time now.
To get to some stranger stuff, I know there's a whole genre of automatic porn, like robots, humanoid or no, with various penetrating things attached that move in different ways, interacting with humans in front of a camera.
I bet there's some interesting social dynamics in who uses manual, as opposed to automatic, transmissions anymore. You have to ask, unless you're buying a lamborghini, or something like that, so who really wants a stick?
If you're looking for a sort of utopian take on the automatic--specifically the cybernetically automatic, characterized by feedback-directed learning--I would turn to Norbert Wiener's _The Human Use of Human Beings_.
The early history of computing is also pretty interesting, as is the history of automata as toys for the bourgeoisie.
Etymology: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=automatic&searchmode=none
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