Beauty and the Machine

Often times, I try to think how people have come to aesthetically value machines. Aime like Gundam Wing, Volton, and Power Rangers, which took up a large chunk of my childhood's imagination and material desires, point to this interesting fact of human life today. We love machines, but do our machines love us back? If only they could think for themselves like how we do. We are rational. They are only rational in functionality because we made them so, particularly for our own rational interests. Efficiency. Lowered opportunity costs. More freedom through time and money. If we have machines do everything for us, we won't have to do it ourselves. This is the rationale behind technology. When we've reached to a point of maximum efficiency and human freedom, then what is left?

This past weekend, we were able to visit two factories: Hanoisimex and Yamaha. Before arriving there, I was thinking about the last time I was at a factory and I remembered a few years ago having the opportunity to visit the Jelly Belly Factory, which is perhaps a more visitor-kid-friendly attraction compared t these two. And they were; though I can say they depict a clearer sense of reality of labor. Growing up, my imagination around factories was heavily influenced by the Willy Wonka and Santa Claus Christmas parable. These [diminutive] workers, though they do such repetitious labor with machines, they are extremely happy and giddy. Are these oopma loompas and elves actually getting paid? Why the hell are they portrayed as a different species as though this type of labor is not for humans? This type of characterization is the polarized extreme opposite of what is truly reality. My tour of the factory was quite eye-opening and humbling.

I have to say I find beauty in machines, a disastrous kind of beauty.

Couldn't believe the Express shirts I saw were being produced at the same factory with other brands. Doesn't it make you wonder about the legitimacy and realness of brands themselves? Everything nowadays come out of factories, and sometimes out of the same factory.