HHIS-382: Automation Histories

Automation" is a key term of the present and everyday there are more and more stories about AI art, self-driving cars, and, most prominently, different types of automated job loss. In these especially, automation is treated as both an inevitable outcome of technological development and a radical paradigm shift in the organization of the economy and society. However, automation is far from a new concern and modernity has been defined by the cyclic return of the automation discourse. In the course we will approach automation in a capacious way conceptually and artistically, and we will look at key moments in the history of automation from the nineteenth century to the present. In doing so, the class will think about how automation is connected to race, gender, sexuality, class, labor, (neo)colonialism, the planet, and what it means to be human, alongside technology. Above all, we will look at how theorists and artists working in multiple mediums have engaged with these development, and students will also reflect on their own relationship to an increasingly automated world.