Robots Replace Humans. Heartfield’s Rationalization Collage A Vision Predicting Machines Taking Human Jobs Prediction
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Die Rationalisierung marschiert!(Rationalization Is On The March!)
Rationalization Is On The March!
Appeared:
Der Knüppel
February, 1927
Berlin, Germany
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Who Will Do The Work?
By John J Heartfield
In 1927, John Heartfield brilliantly commented on corporate rationalizations for replacing human workers with robots. What will happen to those workers?
Heartfield’s collage about the corporate rationalization to have robots replace workers is eerily visionary in another way as well. I found this paragraph on the blog babylonisburning.net in a post entitled:
HOW JOHN HEARTFIELD
INVENTED THE WEB
“As we turned to Heartfield’s collage, I asked the students: do you see any similar practices at work in ”Die Rationalisierung marschiert!”? And, indeed, they quickly began to identify the similarities between Cubist collage and MySpace page – – Heartfield’s use of fragments, the role of the artist as curator, the logic of spatial (versus temporal) organization, etc. The students also pointed to a new connection between Heartfield and MySpace – – the question of originality. Heartfield’s collage foregrounds the cultural “composting” central to collage, the ways in which collage self-consciously recycles existing cultural materials.
THE JOHN HEARTFIELD EXHIBITION SHOP offers exclusive items, including Posters, T-Shirts, and Mugs featuring classic John Heartfield Dada photomontages.Heartfield’s collage “Die Rationalisierung marschiert!” (Rationalization Is On The March!) is one of his most complex montages. It resembles his early Dada work. The photomontage addresses the rationalization of replacing human workers with robots. Owners have the responsibility to ensure their faithful employees can successfully make this adjustment and are not left out in the cold.