Continuing the theme of her open workshop, during the lecture, Linda Weintraub expanded on the idea of technology basically taking over humanity. She explained that there is a new movement (Neo Materialism) that is taking place. This movement critically looks at the "progress" humanity has made due to technology and tries to re-evaluate this so called "progress." She introduced several different artists who incorporated the neo-materialist mindset within their works.
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| Gebhard Sengmuller's Parallel Image |
One artist was Gebhard Sengmuller. His work, The Parallel Image, tried to visually convey all of the energy needed to sustain a piece of technology. In order to be completely transparent with all of the energy needed, the wires are shown behind the portrait of the person. This idea of being transparency within technology was very interesting. I could attest to the fact that I often forget how much energy technology takes. Although I use Laptops, phones, cars, and lights everyday I don't realize how much electricity I am using up. Even when I do get reminded, it is difficult for me to fully grasp how much energy I am using without a visual representation. Consequently, Sengmuller's artwork is very eye opening. Usually, all the wirings are hidden behind some frame, so seeing it out in the open helps us see just how much energy is needed. I also thought the messiness of the wire connections was cool to see. In the Walter Benjamin's reading, it talked about how we want everything to be pristine and orderly. Thus, seeing the messy wires was fun to see. Especially because I feel like companies try to hide all of the messiness within their products.
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| N=1=NPK=KIMCHI=N |
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| N=1=NPK=KIMCHI=N |
Next was JaeRim Lee's work. Through her work, she wanted to try to prove that humans don't only harm the nature, but that humans are able to help nature. She had found that human urine can act like a fertilizer. Thus, she created this exhibit where she can show the process of her urine getting changed to fertilizer. She then used that fertilizer to fertile napa cabbage, which she then made into kimchi. I initially I wasn't sure why her piece was supposed to be so profound because humans did create pieces of technology that help the environment, such as solar panels and oil spill cleaning sponges. However, thinking about it more, I understood what her main point was. She was trying to convey that humans are able to help the environment, solely using the resources coming out of our bodies, not using other pieces of technology. This new understanding allowed me to appreciate her work more. Other than this piece, I could not think of any works that helped the environment solely using the resources created by human's body.
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| Kal Spelletich, Praying Robots |
Lastly, there was Kal Spelletich's Praying Robots. Spelletich talked about how humans use technology because technology is error free and can do everything better than humans. Thus, he created this Praying Robot to argue, why don't we let robots pray for us if they can do everything better than us? During the Robots and Art lecture, I only thought about robots in terms of medical advances and human's attitude towards it. I didn't think about how it could be used to create a satire about the human condition. I thought Spelletich's idea also tied back to Walter Benjamin's point about technology creating the "perfect" product and our desire to only want the "perfect" products. We often only want to use the "best" products that would tasks more efficient to complete. This mindset causes us to be more okay with technology starting to take over human activities, such as automatic driving. Consequently, I thought Spelletich's work was a good reminder that that technology shouldn't replace everything in this world.
Overall, I would recommend attending this event. It was interesting seeing how each artist took a different approach at criticizing how much people rely on technology these days.
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| Me and Linda Weintraub (very small I'm sorry >.<) |
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