Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Recognition, Encounter, and Estrangement, in the Work of Zhou Song

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Philosophy & Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

While most discussions of the relationship between art and technology focus on “new media” practice, there are substantial opportunities to consider technology through “traditional media” such as painting and sculpture. Art and technology intersect through the process and desire of imagination and, in particular, through the attempt to imitate life itself in terms of creation. In this paper, I consider the practice of Beijing-based artist Zhou Song, who images and imagines new worlds as constituted by social robots. Drawing on the frameworks of estrangement, the uncanny, and Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the encounter, I analyze several of Zhou’s works in order to understand possibilities for thinking through the figuration of social robots in relation to our broader understandings of alterity. I argue that Zhou’s hyperrealistic images, which use quotation as a device through which to balance the uncanny with the familiar, prompt an encounter that challenges the cognitive ordering of the world. This research contributes to the developing discourse on social robots through a cultural lens.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See van der Vleuten et al. (2017).

  2. See Stiegler (1998).

  3. See Boyd (1968) on the decline of mimesis in postmodern thought.

  4. Zhou Song (b. 1982, Jiangxi) graduated from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. He first gained recognition beginning in 2003 with his series of hyperrealistic large-scale oil paintings. He is the recipient of the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts graduate thesis first place award and the bronze medal for oil painting at the Nomination Exhibition of National Fine Arts Academy Graduates (2006). In 2009, he signed with the Today Art Museum where he mounted a solo exhibition. In 2012, he received the Award for Painting at the 5th Annual May Fourth International Youth Art Festival. His work is included in several international private and institutional collections including Today Art Museum, Hanwei International Art Center, and Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts.

  5. See Royle (2003) for an extensive discussion of the concept.

  6. See McMahan et al. (2016) and MacDorman et al. (2009).

  7. See Sandry (2015).

  8. See Vacanti et al. (1997).

  9. See Kristeva (1980).

  10. The title of the chapter clearly refers back to Walter Benjamin’s famous text Art in the age of mechanical reproduction, originally published in 1935, which engaged the shifts in thinking about art in the context of rapid industrialization.

References

  • Barnes, J. (2010). [1989]. A history of the world in 101/2chapters. London: J. Cape.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, J. D. (1968). The function of mimesis and its decline. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition. Trans. Patton, P. London: The Athlone Press.

  • Freud, S. (2003) [1919]. The uncanny. Trans. McLintock, D. New York: Penguin Books.

  • Gibson, W. S. (2003). The strawberries of Hieronymus Bosch. Cleveland Studies in the History of Art, 8, 24–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristeva, J. (1980). Pouvoirs de l’horreur: essai sur l’abjection. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

  • MacDorman, K. F., Green, R. D., Ho, C. C., & Koch, C. T. (2009). Too real for comfort? Uncanny responses to computer generated faces. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(3), 695–710.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McMahan, R. P., Lai, C., Pal, S. K., 2016. Interaction fidelity: the uncanny valley of virtual reality interactions. In Shumaker, R., Lackey, S., & International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (18th: Toronto, Ont.). Virtual, augmented and mixed reality: 8th International Conference, VAMR 2016, held as part of HCI International 2016, Toronto, Canada, July 17-22, 2016, Proceedings (Vols 1–1 online resource), pp. 59–70. 

  • Mitchell, W. J. T. (2005). The work of art in the age of biocybernetic reproduction. What do pictures want? The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mori, M. (2012). The uncanny valley [from the field]. Trans. MacDorman, K. F.; Kageki, N. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 19(2): 98–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Sullivan, S. (2006). Art encounters Deleuze and Guattari: thought beyond representation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, J. (2004). The politics of aesthetics: the distribution of the sensible. London: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roh, D. S., Huang, B., & Niu, G. A. (Eds.). (2015). Techno-Orientalism: imagining Asia in speculative fiction, history, and media. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Royle, N. (2003). The uncanny. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandry, E. (2015). Re-evaluating the form and communication of social robots. The benefits of collaborating with machinelike robots. International Journal of Social Robotics, 7, 335–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schatzberg, E. (2006). Technik comes to America: changing meanings of technology before 1930. Technology and Culture, 47(3), 486–512.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schweiker, W. (1990). Mimetic reflections: a study in hermeneutics, theology, and ethics. New York: Fordham University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiegler, B. (1998). Technics and time, 1: the fault of Epimetheus. Trans. Beardsworth, R. & Collins, G. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  • Vacanti, C. A., Cao, Y., Vacanti, J. P., Paige, K. T., & Upton, J. (1997). Transplantation of chondrocytes utilizing a polymer-cell construct to produce tissue-engineered cartilage in the shape of a human ear. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 100(2), 297–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van der Vleuten, E., Oldenziel, R., & Davids, M. (2017). Engineering the future, understanding the past: a social history of technology. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Van Heusden, B. (2010). Estrangement and the representation of life in art. In A. van den Oever (Ed.), Ostrannenie: on “strangeness” and the moving image: the history, reception, and relevance of a concept (pp. 157–164). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, PO Wits, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa

    Stacey Vorster

  2. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Stacey Vorster

Authors
  1. Stacey Vorster
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stacey Vorster.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Vorster, S. Recognition, Encounter, and Estrangement, in the Work of Zhou Song. Philos. Technol. 33, 33–52 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-019-00350-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-019-00350-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation