A-R-T Weekly Newsletter: A “Bloody” Robot, Bird Feeders, and The Relationship Between Nature and Technology
Happy Monday! Here’s your weekly dose of A-R-T, our weekly newsletter. Each week we hand pick an article, a recycled project, and a thought to ponder for the week, delivered right to your inbox. We hope this will leave you feeling inspired, intrigued, and introspective.
This week I’ve been thinking a lot about technology, and the ever changing impact it has on our lives and the world around us. Let’s jump in!
This is a piece of art I can’t believe I didn’t know about until someone brought it up during a class earlier in the week. This excerpt from the beginning of the article immediately caught my attention, “In this work commissioned for the Guggenheim Museum, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu employ an industrial robot, visual-recognition sensors, and software systems to examine our increasingly automated global reality, one in which territories are controlled mechanically and the relationship between people and machines is rapidly changing.” This is such a unique piece and such an interesting and important concept for us to be considering as technology exponentially advances all around us. Read more here.
It seems as though almost overnight AI went from being something most of us would vaguely hear about, to being integrated on most of the internet platforms we use, and something that now heavily impacts the daily lives of so many people. Personally I’ve found myself on the fence about AI in many many ways, but I have been trying to use it here and there since it’s only a matter of time before we’re all fully surrounded by it. So, with that being said, I asked chatGPT to give me some recycled project ideas, so this weeks recycled project is inspired by ChatGPT. Our project for the week is Plastic Bottle Bird Feeders.
Here’s what I got from ChatGPT:
Honestly, this is usable. We could totally just leave it at that. However, we wanted to have an actual project written by a real person, so we have included a much more thorough project for you all, so here it is:
The instructions and items are similar, but the project posting by an actual person has a much different (maybe just more human?) vibe to it. It seems more real, more creative, and just… better, overall (probably because it is, but that’s entire the point). Here’s the entire project! Generally people think of using a bird feeder in the colder months when food is more scare, but it can be an enjoyable and helpful item/activity to have going all year round!
Our thoughts to ponder this week are less specific than normal, but more of a few questions to ask yourself and get your mind stirring about your individual relationship with technology:
What is your personal relationship like with technology? Do you wish it was different?
How much time per day or per week do you spend on your phone? Your computer? Watching TV?
Are you someone who adapts and accepts new technology easily? Or is it harder for you to embrace the new and ever changing additions?
If tomorrow we lost access to the internet indefinitely, would you still be able to function? Do you know how to drive around your city without using your phone? Are there people you would still be able to stay connected to? Would you still be able to listen to music (by having records, tapes, a radio, instruments, etc)?
Do you feel scared about the future of technology? Do you feel hopeful? Do you feel neither and/or both?
Thinking about ChatGPT, a manmade artificial intelligence, telling me to make a bird feeder, is such a weird dichotomy between technology and nature, and humans are just the middle man. But then again, I suppose we always are and always will be.
AI is an incredibly important and complex topic, and this email does not even begin to touch the tip of the iceberg. In the coming months and years it will be vital for us to be thinking about and considering our relationships with and dependence on technology, and to be involved in the governmental processes of regulating the use of these new technologies as they develop. Technology has so much potential to impact us in such incredible and in such devastating ways, and we need to be intentional and mindful of the power it holds, and of the hands that that power falls into.
*Whew*, personally, I feel like I need to go sit outside after thinking this much about technology. I hope you all get some sunshine this week, and are able to spend some time doing a non screen related activity you enjoy :)
Talk to you soon,
Danni