In his famous ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death‘, written in pre-internet times (1985), Neil Postman wrote down his fascinating fear that reality might be reflected more by Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where the public is oppressed by pleasure, than George Orwell’s 1984, where the public is oppressed by pain. In the Orwellian vision of the future, totalitarian governments seize individual rights, while in Brave New World, people medicate themselves into bliss and voluntarily sacrifice their rights.
Shortly put, Postman thinks that mankind surrenders its rights in exchange for entertainment (television). He says that a particular medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas, and that television (in 1985, up to you to decide if that’s still – or even more – the case today) cannot sustain any of the conditions needed for honest intellectual involvement and rational argument, since everything gets diluted on TV.
He gives a striking example: the first fifteen U.S. presidents could probably have walked down the street without being recognized by the average citizen, yet all these men would have been quickly known by their written words. The reverse is true today. The names of presidents call up visual images, typically television images, but few, if any, words come to mind. The few that do almost exclusively consist of carefully-chosen soundbites.
Sounds intriguing but still a little vague? Look at this nice cartoon by Stuart McMillen (2009) (his site is now and then temporary unavailable, sorry for that..)
Source: Wikipedia and Stuart McMillen
I have never known a woman who gets so little media attention in her own country, while thrilling the rest of the world. Pattie Maes is a Belgian tech expert, already living in the US for years. She is one of the leading researchers at the brilliant MIT Media lab. In Maes’ world, the computer is no longer a distinct object, but a source of intelligence that’s embedded in our environment.
At her newly founded Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT, Patti Maes and her student Pranav Mistry developed a real ‘Sixth Sense‘. It is a wearable device which enables you to interact between the real world and the world of data, in a very intuitive way. For example when you want to know the time, just draw a watch on your wrist and you’ll see the time appearing. Or in case you forgot your cell phone, just aim the device at your handpalm and you’ll be able to form a number on your hand and do that call. The audience obviously went wild while watching her TED talk.
We are Gini Rose, Julia and Suzy. We draw, take pictures, film, and write (in English or Dutch) about everything we are intrigued by. We are never bored. Our hobby is to search for that kind of reality which may be elusive until the right kind of imagination falls upon it. We like to go outside. We also like to party. Want to know more? About is your button. Or click here to read our mighty mission statement. This page is our magazine, or a cabinet of views, viewpoints and new work. Here you'll find the RSS feed to stay updated. For an overview of our portfolio, take a dive into the deepsea..
