Week 3 Discussion Board: Can Art Be Mechanically Reporduced ?

When something is reproduced for so many times is that art? What's the importance of the mechanical reproducibility of the art? What was the impact on mechanical reproducibility on the society? 

I believe art can be mechanically reproduced. Recreation and innovation is frowned up on by many in belief that you were not the first creator or inventor. I believe recreation has a purpose. the first plane was made by two brothers but that plane couldn’t carry hundreds of passengers. It took years of innovation for hundreds of passenger to board a plane and have it fly safely. This is why i believe if something is reproduced many times it is still considered art. In this day and age new inventions are hardly even created. A lot of things created in today's society are innovated and are made to replace the originals in positive ways. We would call these copies, but just a minor adjustments to a mechanical figure such as a car, or even a minor adjustment to a photograph can ultimately make it your idea or innovation. Many things in today's society are digitally reproduced like photographs. Software's such as Photoshop can help us reproduce original photos or even create our own, but it is important to respect the originator of the art. The impact of mechanical reproduction on society is massive considering the fact that we see or do it every day. Mechanical reproduction can be as simple as changing a few sentences on a hand out or lecture or as complex as adding new features to a 2015 corvette from the older 2014 model. Every day, legally and illegally, art forms are mechanically reproduced.

Is photography art, or contribution to the art? Is it just a tool used by artists? 

If photography isn’t art then I don’t know what art is. Photography is art in so many different ways. Most painters paint things because they have a vivid image stuck in their heads. Most painters reproduce pictures in their paintings also, and isn’t painting art? Modeling is also a form of art and to capture a picture of a model can really show your creativity in field of a photographer. To edit a picture of a model can show your creativity in the field of an editor, both are considered artist. In the English dictionary it also tell you photography is a form of art. I don’t think photography is just a tool used by artists. One photo says a thousand words, and that is art to me.

How and why Henry Pitch Robinson created Fading Away? What was the reason? 

Henry Pitch created Fading Away by using the five negatives. In one picture Henry explains so much. A dying girl brings much sorrow to her family. A photo like this is able to control the viewer and grasp their attention. This kind of photo makes your mind wander and makes you wonder what is truly going on. Photos such as this weren’t common in the 1800’s such sorrow, and for some far to gruesome. I believe Henry wanted his audience to feel or at least understand the pain this family feels in this photograph.

Photography has impacted the world of art and influenced some changes in the area of accessibility to art. If mechanical reproduction created revolution, what is happening now with the digitalization? 

Mechanical reproduction helps us along the path of digital reproduction. In toady’s society most edits or modifications are done on the computer. Computers are one of the biggest mechanical reproducers of art. With the right software they can help us edit a picture to our liking, make or edit figures, shapes, and models. Computers are so advanced these days we can even edit videos on them. Almost every art form at this point can be mechanically and digitally reproduced, and with the new technology digitalization of art is becoming more easy to do.