"We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us"
- Marshall McLuhan 1911-1980
This quote from Marshall McLuhan provided the base for this lecture, posing the question of how dependent are we on the technology we have chosen to create?
Considering the first Apple Mac, created in 1990, it is interesting to consider how technology has grown in prominence. Technology seems to have changed from being about limitations to being about possibilities. The mac offered designers an affordable outlet for digital reproduction, a tool that most children have access to now. James Bridle's idea of the 'New Aesthetic' describes the place of digital technology in visual language. The increasing desire for the digital aesthetic, perhaps explaining the availability and access to technology through our desire to blur the lines between the digital world and the real world.
The ability of technology to realise fantasy solutions drives technological development. The place of technology in films seems to constantly unwrap new possibilities and so the designer and maker are at the forefront of technological development. I question how far this can go. If technology enables us to create fantasy technologies, which then become real technologies, surely we will be dependent on a dream lifestyle that constantly needs redesigning? Alluding to a utopia, Marshall McLuhan critiques this technology; "World War 3 is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation".
From this lecture it seems that technology poses a threat to our skills sets and ability to provide for the demands of modern culture, yet it also suggests that technology supports its own development by encouraging nostalgia and people wanting to uphold aged technologies.
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