Pluto: Robots and Aesthetic Experience by Peter Wilkins
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raig Fischer’s recent article in The Comics Journal, “Pluto and Doubling”, drew me to Naoki
Urasawa’s Pluto (2009), a reconfiguration of Osamu Tezuka’s “Greatest Robot on Earth” story
arc. Fischer notes that Urasawa “subverts the typical science-fiction stereotype of robot-human
interaction” because the robots explore feelings while the human characters exhibit more instrumental thinking. In Pluto, robots yearn for aesthetic experience, provoking us to meditate on the human relationship to the sensory experiences of pain and pleasure, the beautiful and the sublime. As examples of purpose-built technology, the robots also require us to meditate on the ironic relationship between aesthetic capacity and instrumental reason: the machines of war keep insisting
Urasawa, N. (2009) Pluto (99, 5 and 6)
on the importance or art, beauty, and feeling in general. Simply put, the robots’ aesthetic desire cri-
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tiques instrumentality in the service of war in favour of a more humane, if not perhaps more human,
When North No. 2 asks about the equipment, Duncan responds “High-tech equipment can mas-
response to the world. Consequently, Pluto demonstrates a connection between aesthetic judgment
querade as the real thing, but they’re just a bunch of machines…” (2009: 101, 4). Duncan clearly
and practical reason, between what is beautiful and what is good or right.
perceives the piano as more “authentic” than the synthesizer, a perception that raises questions
The early North No. 2 episodes confound the distinction between instrumentality and aesthetics
about the distinction between machines that imitate and instruments that produce authentic music.
in the sphere of music. North No. 2 is essentially a weapon with artificial intelligence who wants to
Duncan never answers those questions, but we can suppose that his logic depends on motivational
learn to play the piano. After the 39th Central Asian Conflict, he fortuitously gets a job as butler to a
and operational causality: the music in his mind moves through his hands to the piano in a compre-
composer, Paul Duncan. Duncan immediately rejects North No. 2’s desire, reacting as if his touching
hensible fashion. Duncan’s repeated banging his hand or fist on the piano, a motif of these episodes,
the piano were instrumental miscegenation: “Stop, North! That piano’s not designed to be touched
emphasizes this causality, as if the piano were a tool, like a hammer:
by a weapon of mass destruction!!” (2009: 109, 6). Consistently in these episodes, Duncan’s words evoke a racist response to the threat of the other.# Racism depends upon definitions of the human being: a Jewish or black person is outside the racist’s definition, just as North No. 2 is outside Duncan’s. Belonging to “humanity” is a guarantee of ethical treatment; being inhuman means that one can be used and abused. Further, it means that whatever one produces cannot be art: “No! Your kind can’t make music!!” (2009: 116, 5) Duncan is insistent on the distinction. He believes he knows the difference between “data” and “true feelings,” mere imitation and authentic music. Duncan has a Romantic view of art: what matters is the expression of the artist’s mind, not the imitation of things in the world. This view emphasizes ephemeral genius over concrete technê. While electronic musical equipment fills Duncan’s house, he eschews it for an old-fashioned piano, stressing his “organic” relationship to his craft. As Duncan plays the piano, the electronic instruments “look
Urasawa, N. (2009) Pluto (99, 2)
on,” seemingly disappointed by their neglect: But Duncan’s violence towards his instrument–at one point he is on the verge of taking an axe to it–emphasizes his failure to make his tool produce what is in his head. He cannot fill in a particular
The Comics Grid. Year One. 2011–2012
The Comics Grid. Year One. 2011–2012
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