In this class we further explored the relation between technology and humanity. We discussed variations of a popular collage-based approach for video creation. This is yet another form that you are encouraged to consider for your final work.
There is yet another common outlook at the potentials of the relation between humans and technology. It is a dream
“of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony”
This is a fragment of the poem All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan. First published in 1967 (around the time he served as poet-in-residence at California Institute of Technology), it expresses a hopeful optimism over the promise of technology- a feeling common among the West Coast counterculture of the 1960’s.
Technology, sex, drugs, eastern philosophies and rock and roll were some of the means by which that generation attempted to carry through their common drive for social and spiritual liberation.
The dream of technology as a means for social liberation through the creation of a free social space was shattered in 2003 with the dead of Aaron Swartz, genius hacktivist and martyr of the Internet.
However the dissemination of information and alternative worldviews is still a important form of political activism. A number of online videos with a particular collage-like creative approach are capturing the popular imagination, in occasions growing to become social movements. Zeitgeist is likely the most prominent, considered “the first Internet-based apocalyptic cult”.[5]
Technology’s promise of spiritual liberation seems to still hold true in the popularity of works that disseminate alternative worldviews, often reconciling traditional Eastern philosophical traditions with latest scientific discoveries. The series Inner Worlds Outer Worlds is a good example of another common visual online video style:
Appleseed is another comment on that vision. It portrays an utopia where Bioroids -unlike Blade Runner’s Replicants- are designed to live among humans and contribute to our common spiritual well-being.
Adam Curtis is a visual artist who has developed a highly elaborate style combining disparate visuals, music and historical facts.
In All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, Curtis explores the impact the 60’s counterculture on Silicon Valley creatives and entrepreneurs of the 90’s resulting in what is knows as the Californian Ideology. The trailers are great samplers of a real visual treat: