Robots sculpt marble in Italy, sparking worries about future of art form

YouTube ^ | November 12, 2024 | 60 Minutes

[SunkenCiv]

A fleet of marble-sculpting robots is carving out the future of the art world. It's a move some artists see as cheating, but others are embracing the change.

Robots sculpt marble in Italy, sparking worries about future of art form | 13:17
60 Minutes | 3.27M subscribers | 349,894 views | November 12, 2024

[cymbeline]

“The first sculptor to use electric power tools probably heard “cheater”

No. If the power tool is like a brush, pencil, chalk, chisel, drafting table, which is guided by a human hand, is not “reproducing”. Such a product comes from a human mind and is an original.

[usurper]

You miss the point. Reproductions/replicas are not art, they are copies.

Yea, its like a cover band or a movie remake. They may be great but never as good as the original.

If I was a sculptor I would never copy others work. Waste of time when you consider that with the software you could dream and create wonders the world has never seen.

[FatherofFive]

If a robot can chisel out a near-perfect replica of the Venus de Milo or Michelangelo’s David or Augustus of Prima Porta, I’d imagine that there’ll be a market for that sort of thing.

I recall a line of oil painting reproductions of classic paintings that were so good they had to put a disclaimer on the back. Still pricy (at the time a couple thousand) but a real opportunity to have a Monet hanging in the living room. I'd get one

[Hiddigeigei]

"You miss the point. I never said that such things weren’t copies."
I was under the impression that most artists make their statue in clay and give it to professional marble cutters to end up with a marble statue. I may be wrong.

[SunkenCiv]

I agree — more representational art in general would be an improvement, and sculpture is generally not seen that much.

[Albion Wilde]

Italy has passed a number of regulations regarding food labeling to preserve their historic food heritage. For instance, Chinese noodles do not have egg, but traditional pasta has egg; so the labels of non-egg pasta cannot imply "italian." The world has agreed on materials like ivory, as another example of prohibitions or limits on usage.

Likewise with their historic traditional arts, I think they should ban the use of marble for "tourist art" and confine it to hand-made fine art and a limited amount and type of marble for building materials. Other countries have marble that can be used for building.

[John O]

Since all of these are copies, it will be good as long as the prices come way down for them.

Marble sculpture is beautiful but priced way way too high.

The only real downside I see is that the existing works (which were likely bought at auction for millions) will be slightly devalued.

[SunkenCiv]

Entirely new works could be done this way, using templates made of wax, clay, or 3D printed plastic.