Towards our presentation we are looking towards having the transition of technology visible as our medium of presentation, for instance Pictorial, advancing into writing, transforming into print, TV, CG etc, etc.
I think written book to printed to typed up on a monitor is an interesting way of doing it.
However I don’t want to mince our ideas by doing this. Im not sure if the theory that suggests that eastern/pictorial and western/typographic ways of thinking will be used and or contradicted by a presentation that uses this visual description.
Could we show some kind of battle or contrast?
In David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas the distinction is made between civilized and savage individuals. Also that wee all contain a mix off both, savagery and civilized nature, individually and as a whole society. This argument supports the Idea that we are mechanical, when unattached to technologies and when using them.
Here are some concise readings of the above statement?
*TV zombies, using their technologies in an uncritical manner.
*People who use them uncritically and as a result the technology has no significant impact on the course of their lives, e.g. they destroy themselves or rot away regardless of their interaction with the technology. They simply carry on with their robotic/beast like Impulse led lives.
*People who use the technology but never take it beyond a physical extension of their being. Simply allowing it to change them??
This one I am still a bit confused about.
The character in the middle character of Cloud Atlas describes the down fall of mankind.
Wonderful aspects of our technologies are described, medicines and boats with fusion/fission engines. She goes on to describe how we burned our skies and poisoned
our oceans. How we chose denial over facing difficult truths and decisions.
It describes our technologies leading to a hollow existence much like that of the savages, where we take what we want when we want it. This led to our downfall, we rose to a bright shining future, but then pissed it away as a result of our robotic/beast-like nature.
“The Diets that Time Forgot”
Last night on channel 4 I witnessed the opinions of the historian “Sir Roy Strong”
whose view reflected this sentiment. “We live in a time instant gratification where they want it now so they take it now, people no longer understand the concept of restraint”
He also had this to say on the C4 website, just thought I would add it.
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/D/diets-that-time-forgot/
"We live in the golden age of the slob. I don't believe in going back, but I do believe there are serious and practical lessons to be learned from the past that could help us conquer the obesity epidemic of today."
I think that this is an example of the idea that we have regressed as a result of our technologies. Reflecting the views found in Cloud Atlas regarding our fall from grace.
We could have used this as a starting point to research ancient history, possibly to see if the collapses or reforms of ancient cultures had anything to do with a the effects of technology upon us or our reaction to them.
Maybe we could use the technology of mass production as something that effects our eating habits. Looking at an uncritical approach where the individual destroys their life.
We could display this in the style of 1950s advertisements. This fits that era of American style mechanization.
What have I basically said?
I think this might be a mistake, here I think I am saying that our beastly and impulsive nature causes us to be uncritical when approaching our technologies, possibly because I am using the words of others. What I mean to say is that our reactions to some technologies are uncritical as a result we become robotic and get trapped in that impulsive cycle, this may spread outward, affecting our approach to all the technologies around us. That last bit is simply speculation on my part.
I wanted to expand onto the Idea that being critical with your technologies may result in a higher state of being, a greater degree of awareness of oneself. Almost comparable to the Sonmi’s awakening, those moments where you feel slow and out of practice. Where you don’t really know your place in the world.
Burke “the first right of every man in civilized society is to be protected against the consequences of his own stupidity.”
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