Thursday, March 19, 2015

The Nightingale



The presentation about the Twittering Machine by Klee made me think about the Hans Chrisitian Andersen story "The Nightingale." I have attached a plot summary but basically the important part is that there is a live nightingale that is replaced by a mechanical bird. The emperor that the nightingale used to sing to falls ill when he no longer has the live nightingale and only hears the mechanical bird's song. What do y'all think Andersen and Klee are trying to say by pitting the forces of nature versus the power of machines? Thoughts?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightingale_(fairy_tale)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I mean in my opinion it seems obvious that he is making a statement that we simply can't replace everything with machines, quite possibly as a retaliation to the futurist movement. Tis bad for society.

Unknown said...

Yeah, I definitely agree with Alex. I think that they both make a statement on nature vs. machinery and industrialization, as the machine age and rapid industrialization become so prominent and prevalent in society that Klee and Anderson felt that soon machinery and technology was becoming so embedded in society that they depicted these new modern trends are starting to dictate and take over every part of people's lives, including nature. It kind of reminds me of today's modernity in a way. Our advancements in technology have come to control almost every part of our lives that it seems that it could potentially take over and control every literal aspect of life and society in today's world.