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DETERMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS AND ART
The concept of "Techne", which in ancient Greece means that objects can be transformed into another object with craftsmanship and mastery, and which forms the roots of the word technology, guided the artists who discovered the use of art as a means of rebellion at the beginning of the 20th century. The desire for progress that emerges due to the self-sufficiency of the individual and social values and the need for change has become a phenomenon that can be observed in various ways in every period of human history. “It is possible to use those values while constructing social and cultural change theories with the desire to progress” (Bock, 2002, p.53).
The communication that mankind establishes with his environment and himself is related to the development and renewal of social values and judgments in a positive or negative sense as well; The belonging determined by the order established by state structures in the construction of society also depends on the results of the innovations brought about by ownership and production forms. Two important concepts that can be causally established on the path to change are technology and ideology. “After the change begins, technology and ideology begin to affect each other significantly” (Kongar, 1981, p.22). Although societies do not have a clear say about technologies that will affect daily life practice, they can direct development in line with the needs through political science. Societies that can react to these needs at certain points in history and have the ability to direct the development process; They are one step ahead of other societies in determining their own future. Technology, in a way, means the ability of societies to carry themselves to a more qualified future. From this point of view, the effect of technology on the variability of the society is clearly seen. The concept of art, which meets one of the most systematic and aesthetic aspects of the culture produced by the social as a living organism, cannot be considered independent of the conditions of the society in which it was born and raised. In order to observe the effects of technology on art, first of all, it is necessary to examine works of art in a historical level.
One of the methods followed while examining the science of history within itself, the condition of historical causality should also be taken into consideration in the evaluation of works of art. While examining the work of art, it should be interpreted under two main headings, except for the need for historical causation; The production method of the work of art and the sociological characteristics of the society in which it is located should be considered. In order to perceive the history of humanity correctly, the concept of art, which is one of the most common and different points of various cultures, should be approached within the framework of these three conditions.
History; He says that humanity has passed through four critical junctures until today, lived through these four important breaking points and underwent transformation. Production capacity and capital, which increased with the change of production forms, led to the emergence of the concept of capitalist society. The Industrial Revolution, which is the third breaking point of human history and spread from England to the whole world since the 1700s, has been able to change the daily life practice of humanity faster and radically than the critical junctures before it; showed that the power of change is directly proportional to the complexity coefficient of technological developments. "The fourth transformation phase of human history is the Information Revolution" (Kocacık, 2003, p.1-10). The Information Revolution, on the other hand, rivets its success thanks to the increasingly composite structure of technological developments, in contrast to the segregation and sectoral approach, which is one of the reasons for the Industrial Revolution to be considered successful. “In this integrated system, old and new technological trajectories become inseparable literally” (Castells, 2005, p. 91).
In the process leading up to modernism, the Information Revolution, which is the fourth milestone of human history, took place in a similar and similar environment to the natural conditions that would lead to the Industrial Revolution. Significant changes have occurred in technology, the life standard in the world and consequently consumption needs have increased, and capital accumulation has emerged with the enrichment of the so-called bourgeois segment. Within the framework of this situation that led to the formation of new business lines and actors, the method used by Europe in the Geographical Discoveries and the Industrial Revolution was reused only by changing its form and colonial movements were revived. The only difference is that the raw material brought from the colonized lands is processed and resold to the people in the lands it came from.
Transfiguration into the industrial society has continued for a century and has been a painful process. The social structure could not be institutionalized within the predicted natural process due to the social turbulence and the time it takes for the foundation stones of the newly established order to settle. Neo-liberal policies have expanded their dominant area in the world with the economic collapse of the countries governed by the socialist regime since 1980, so the cities that have changed shape with the Industrial Revolution have been renewed in line with the benefit of the capitalist order. Cities, which have been growing rapidly since the 90's, have transformed their form to support neo-liberalist approaches, based on the logic of facilitating capital accumulation. In order to analyze the cracks in the modes of production and the Neo-liberalist approach that succeeded in producing class discriminations specific to its own historical time in society, the Fordism crisis can be examined appropriately.
Fordism is a form of production that Ford Motor has developed in its factories, based on automation and standardization, based on division of labor and specialization, in which the people working with the moving belt system are excluded as much as possible from the production phase. The Fordist system, which lost its function and played an active role in the structuring process of problematic economies, gained strength in 1942-1945. The working style of local governments, organized in a structure integrated with the Fordist system within the bipolar world order, caused cities to be shaped according to this order; The hallmarks of this period were heavy industries and mass production. “Major industrialization movements, accompanied by discourses of modernization, development and the welfare state, have gradually taken over the city center and have made these areas the center of production and accumulation as well as areas where labor, mass consumption and welfare are concentrated” (Özkan-Sıdal, 2010, p. 23-24).
The Information Revolution experienced today is not structured in a very different way. The capitalist order has re-presented to human beings by renewing itself and making up the innovations it brought to the production relations that it radically changed with the Industrial Revolution. Just as it used the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Capitalism sees the Information Revolution as a tool in the correction of the points that are blocked and need to change in daily life practice in accordance with its own interests. “The new society that emerged in this process of change is both capitalist and informational, although it shows a considerable historical diversity in different countries depending on its history, culture and institutions, and its relations with global capitalism and information technology” (Castells, 2005, p. 15).
Art, which was the discourse of spiritual and political leaders until the 1800s, first questioned the world and the beyond, which it could not get out of, and helped human beings to know themselves. In line with the studies carried out in the field of science and their results, the human being, who gradually started to take over the dominance, began to dissolve the idea of the individual in the conventional structure. Freedom struggle in the French Revolution of 1789 Industrial Revolution, the center of gravity in the intellectual sense of society has changed hands continuously. While the peoples expressed their desire for "equality" and "freedom", the Industrial Revolution took place and machines were included in human life. While the artists who gained the right to use their names in their works during the Renaissance could bring works to the art world as architects, engineers, astronomers, anatomists and even religious figures; In the developing conjuncture, they were excluded from the production network as much as possible with mechanization. The task of changing the face of the world was taken from their hands and given to architects and engineers specialized in their profession - on the road to the Fordist system. “What is new in this period has now been to reconcile the aesthetic view with the general wage, politics and bureaucratic method” (Baynes, 2008, p.52). Naturally, the critical point in the sequence of dialogues between periods; It is the use of new methods developed in the technique to make cultural data that could not reach the necessary recipient accessible by large masses. In the capitalist order, the increasing concrete needs of consumers, changing and transforming social values have changed the existing cultural systematic. In the new production system, the material demands of the consumers and different social foundations have changed the existing system culture. Societies' perception of reality has changed and technology has played an important role in this.
With this industrialization-based mental development that spread from Europe and America in the 19th century all over the world, the peoples realized most of their own evaluation and questioning of existence through art. The understanding of the nation-state that rose with the French Revolution has strengthened the perception of citizenship and increased the reaction of the artists to the events that constitute the agenda of the historical time. Romanticism mixed the concepts of enthusiasm and violence; made war seem like a virtuous event. Nevertheless, the use of art for this purpose in order to react is a hopeful indicator for the future. The mental confusion experienced by the European mentality in the said period; Just like the imagination that the increase in consumption needs due to the Industrial Revolution is only a positive situation, violence, blood, greed for power, selfishness, and even sexual satisfaction have led to the idea that it is a dynamic that ignites the society and keeps the society alive.
Of course, not all artists belonging to the Romanticism movement had these thoughts during this period. There were also those who behaved in exceptional ways, who more accurately fulfilled the function of art and its role in vital practice. Just as the complexities of the period in every sense gradually reached every sector of production relations; The same intellectual chaos covered every part of the society, from the whole to every individual who was a part of it. F.Goya, who is one of the names who deeply felt and conveyed this material and spiritual chaos experienced, preferred to talk about the burden of heroism on the shoulders of people instead of embellishing and encouraging war in his works. His work named "The Disasters of War", which is generally examined with an individualist approach, does not only focus on individual dilemmas, but also imagines the deep and complex emotions of the social through the individual. "However, if these depths did not exist in Goya, ultimately his works would not have been interpreted in this way" (Baynes, 2008, p.263).
Delacroix's Faust, Daumier's focus on the immoralities of the bourgeois class, which was at the top of the hierarchical order of the period, together with Goya, who blends the tendency to show the normal, the superhuman, in an epic narrative with the fact that the real heroes in war are actually ordinary people; Although it is an example of the cries of the people of the period in the same historical process, starting with the French Revolution and extending to the Industrial Revolution; It is a clear indicator of the extent to which important social events experienced affect art and works of art.
This fire of freedom, spreading from France to the whole of Europe, caused protest structures all over Europe; therefore, it has affected all European art. The economic and social conditions of the period resonated throughout Europe, causing uprisings in Barcelona and Naples in 1821, Athens in 1822, and Warsaw in 1833.
The 19th century, when the bourgeoisie could not fully seize the hegemonic power, was a century when industry could not really solve its own problems. The material problems encountered in the transition to this new economic order also caused mental confusion in the bourgeois part. These mental confusions of the bourgeois segment also affected the understanding of art of this class and they found valuable craft products that honor and glorify bourgeois life, instead of real works of art that could not meet their expectations. These craft products mean "worthless goods" in German; This has led to the emergence of the concept of “kitsch”, which rejects ethics, aesthetics, schooling and tradition in art. “The main reason for kitsch development is both technology and realism” (Çakır, 2002, p.150). In the same period, the sciences that developed with empirical methods revealed Realism.
It has begun to be observed by most European societies that rationalism has come to the fore and the romantic perspective has lost its reality, and a new perspective has been opened in the perception of reality. Realism, whose basic principle is to give up dreaming and to follow the truth, has caused the real consciousness in the social collective prepared by Romanticism. Artists belonging to Realism born as a reaction to Romanticism; They were able to criticize the problems faced by the social in an open language within the framework of their basic principles, in the environment of freedom, where the Romantic movement had a great share in its formation. The artists who reacted were sensitive to the society in which they lived, just like the artists who produced works during the French Revolution. “Traditions, education, national trends, political and economic factors, religious beliefs and even climates have had an impact on the natures of artists. They also reflected these effects on their works ”(Bulut, 2003, p.97).
Just like Realism, naturalism has completed its formation under similar conditions. Naturalists, who define the world they live in and human as a part and result of environmental conditions, have tended to base the spiritual aspects of human beings on concrete causations with a materialistic approach. They are distinguished from realism artists in terms of seeing human beings as an ordinary creature. Naturalist works, in which the understanding of "art for society" is systematically studied for the first time, are important in this sense.
With the Industrial Revolution, the daily life practices changed suddenly and radically, the people who were forced to live in the industrial centers established by leaving the rural life, took the form of a community in the city while they were the society of the countryside.
Connecting the source of life to nature and taking its power from it, man was suddenly thrust under the rule of machines. Undoubtedly, "Brain workers and the artists who took part in them had a great role in the formation of the industrial world that entered as an intermediate world between man and the world" (İpşiroğlu, 1993, p.115).
The 1800s, a period when the understanding of art became flat, pushed the artist to create his own market and to commodify the works produced. Artists who tried to change the basic rules of aesthetic perception due to the search for the market, in line with these individual efforts, fought both with their competitors and the rules of traditional aesthetic perception in order to reach and be accepted by the consumer segment. Cause of market conditions, artists, who were unnecessary to compete with each other, became rivals. “For this reason, the idea that the modern artist should have a mysterious atmosphere that symbolizes his creativity, in order to produce an original, unique and marketable cultural product, has begun to form” (Harvey, 2003, p.34-36).
The discovery of photography after 1850 significantly affected the art of painting regarding the reproduction of the artwork, and photography replaced most of the works reproduced by the method of reproduction. “While one of the most important changes in this process was the loss of value in the artworks as a result of the reproduction made through photography, it was not a certain“ group ”but“ masses ”that determined the content of art” (Çakır, 2002, p.149).
Since the cave paintings, all the images that the art of painting has made thematic have been captured by the machine with the invention of the photograph. “The depictions of nature and figures have been transferred to a machine since cave times with photography. However, the artists made new experiments by using the machines in the service of their fantasies and preferred to use it for their own service instead of running away from technology ”(Turani, 1960, p. 91). The concept of photography, which began in France in 1826 by Nicephore Niepce with his photograph titled "Landscape in the Window of Le Gras", which reduced the time of making a painting to 8 hours, led the artists who performed works in the art of painting to worry about the depiction function of art, and many new trends were developed in the art of painting. has emerged. “The aristocratic class, which dominates the state administration, has been replaced by the bourgeois class enriched by industry. Parliaments took the place of absolute administration ”(Turani, 1960, p.11-17). With this change in the social, the Renaissance, the work of art that got rid of anonymity started to guide social mental development and form styles with this period. What happened in the historical process caused the reorganization of institutional structuring by changing the ruling class. The new concepts offered by modernity have created new needs in life practice; The acceleration of the consumption process has adapted to the daily life of the capitalist order and started to transform it within the framework of its own interests. “Capitalism, empowered by modernization, is a system that activates the established, ensures the functioning of free circulation and deletes the preventive, and makes the unique one interchangeable (Crary, 2004, p.22-23). European mentality with art movements such as Realism that emerged in this period; oriented towards rationalism, individualism; It has begun to learn to react to any system that puts pressure on the social. Realism, which is one of the main factors that constitute European art, has emerged with the progress of European philosophy on individualism in the mentioned process. With the Industrial Revolution, man's admiration for nature has turned into a struggle and has become the problematic of many wars that will take place until today, due to modern thinking, which is the basis of questioning. “Every stage of this war both led the European to a new understanding of the world and also led to the awakening of a new consciousness on his own existence. This ensured the reality and the continuous development of human beings ”(İpşiroğlu, Eyüpoğlu, 1972)
