Here are two corporate visions of what the future will feel/look like. They are visually slick. Unfortunately, the futures these videos depict won't happen.

What would I love to see? A set of technology/design/lifestyle videos like these for people thriving in resilient communities circa 2025.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2011/11/designlifestyle-fiction.html

To elaborate: mainstream computer artists regard computers as tools, universal "anything machines" that can translate pure, immaterial, technology-independent ideas into something that can be seen, heard or otherwise experienced. Thus, ideas come before technology. Demosceners, however, have an opposite point of view; for them, technology comes before ideas. A computer platform is seen as a material that can be brought into different states, in a way comparable to how a sculptor brings blocks of stone into different forms. The possibilities of a material can be explored with direct, uncompromising interaction such as low-level programming. The platform is not neutral, its characteristics are essential to what demos written for it end up being like. While a piece of traditional computer art can often be safely removed from its specific technological context, a demo is no longer a demo if the platform is neglected.

The focus on materiality also results in a somewhat unusual relationship with technology. For most people, computer platforms are just evolutionary stages on a timeline of innovation and obsolescence. A device serves for a couple of years before getting abandoned in favor of a new model that is essentially the same with higher specs. The characteristics of a digital device boil down to numerical statistics in the spirit of "bigger is better". The demoscene, however, sees its platforms as something more multi-faceted. An old computer or gaming console may be interesting as an artistic material just because of its unique combination of features and limitations. It is fine to have historical, personal or even political reasons for choosing a specific platform, but they're not necessary; the features of the system alone are enough to grow someone's creative enthusiasm. As so many people misunderstand the relationship between demoscene and old hardware as a form of "retrocomputing", it is very delightful to see such an accurate insight to it.

http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2011/11/materiality-and-demoscene-when-does.html

as compared to Xbox Bing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svQXBfCjqp0

Nowadays, people have submitted ever bigger portions of their lives to "gaming machines" that make things at least superficially easier and simpler, but whose internal rules they don't necessarily understand at all. A substantial portion of today's social interaction in developed countries, for example, takes place in on-line social networking services. Under their hoods, these services calculate things like message visibility -- that is, which messages and whose messages are supposed to be more important for a given user. For most people, however, it seems to be completely OK that a computer owned by a big, distant corporation makes such decisions for them using a secret set of rules. They just care about the fun.

It has always been easy to use the latest media to manipulate people, as it takes time from the audience to develop criticism. When writing was a new thing, most people would regard any text as a "word of God" that was true just because it was written. In comparison, today's people have a thick wall of criticism against any kind of non-interactive propaganda, be that textual, aural or visual, but whenever a game-like interaction is introduced, we often become completely vulnerable. In short, we know how to be critical about an on-line news items but not how to be critical about the "like" and "share" buttons under them.

http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2011/07/dont-submit-yourself-to-game-machine.html

also this

i might do a write up for all this now

"No mammy, no pappy, poor little bastard. Money? You give money?” The urchin turned a cartwheel and then a somersault in the street, stirring yellow dust around his nakedness.

Lalji paused to stare at the dirty blond child who had come to a halt at his feet. The attention seemed to encourage the urchin; the boy did another somersault. He smiled up at Lalji from his squat, calculating and eager, rivulets of sweat and mud streaking his face. “Money? You give money?”

Around them, the town was nearly silent in the afternoon heat. A few dungareed farmers led mulies toward the fields. Buildings, pressed from WeatherAll chips, slumped against their fellows like drunkards, rain-stained and sun-cracked, but, as their trade name implied, still sturdy. At the far end of the narrow street, the lush sprawl of SoyPRO and HiGro began, a waving rustling growth that rolled into the bluesky distance. It was much as all the villages Lalji had seen as he traveled upriver, just another farming enclave paying its intellectual property dues and shipping calories down to New Orleans.

The boy crawled closer, smiling ingratiatingly, nodding his head like a snake hoping to strike. “Money? Money?”

parabolart posted:

this is a good read on "demos"

To elaborate: mainstream computer artists regard computers as tools, universal "anything machines" that can translate pure, immaterial, technology-independent ideas into something that can be seen, heard or otherwise experienced. Thus, ideas come before technology. Demosceners, however, have an opposite point of view; for them, technology comes before ideas. A computer platform is seen as a material that can be brought into different states, in a way comparable to how a sculptor brings blocks of stone into different forms. The possibilities of a material can be explored with direct, uncompromising interaction such as low-level programming. The platform is not neutral, its characteristics are essential to what demos written for it end up being like. While a piece of traditional computer art can often be safely removed from its specific technological context, a demo is no longer a demo if the platform is neglected.

The focus on materiality also results in a somewhat unusual relationship with technology. For most people, computer platforms are just evolutionary stages on a timeline of innovation and obsolescence. A device serves for a couple of years before getting abandoned in favor of a new model that is essentially the same with higher specs. The characteristics of a digital device boil down to numerical statistics in the spirit of "bigger is better". The demoscene, however, sees its platforms as something more multi-faceted. An old computer or gaming console may be interesting as an artistic material just because of its unique combination of features and limitations. It is fine to have historical, personal or even political reasons for choosing a specific platform, but they're not necessary; the features of the system alone are enough to grow someone's creative enthusiasm. As so many people misunderstand the relationship between demoscene and old hardware as a form of "retrocomputing", it is very delightful to see such an accurate insight to it.

http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2011/11/materiality-and-demoscene-when-does.html

as compared to Xbox Bing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svQXBfCjqp0

Nowadays, people have submitted ever bigger portions of their lives to "gaming machines" that make things at least superficially easier and simpler, but whose internal rules they don't necessarily understand at all. A substantial portion of today's social interaction in developed countries, for example, takes place in on-line social networking services. Under their hoods, these services calculate things like message visibility -- that is, which messages and whose messages are supposed to be more important for a given user. For most people, however, it seems to be completely OK that a computer owned by a big, distant corporation makes such decisions for them using a secret set of rules. They just care about the fun.

It has always been easy to use the latest media to manipulate people, as it takes time from the audience to develop criticism. When writing was a new thing, most people would regard any text as a "word of God" that was true just because it was written. In comparison, today's people have a thick wall of criticism against any kind of non-interactive propaganda, be that textual, aural or visual, but whenever a game-like interaction is introduced, we often become completely vulnerable. In short, we know how to be critical about an on-line news items but not how to be critical about the "like" and "share" buttons under them.

http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2011/07/dont-submit-yourself-to-game-machine.html

also this

i might do a write up for all this now

cool articles, nice toob, lets see a write up, make it so nerd

mistersix posted:

shennong posted:

babyfinland posted:

Here are two corporate visions of what the future will feel/look like. They are visually slick. Unfortunately, the futures these videos depict won't happen.

What would I love to see? A set of technology/design/lifestyle videos like these for people thriving in resilient communities circa 2025.

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2011/11/designlifestyle-fiction.html

this is kind of a weird request if only because the aesthetic in those kinds of videos presumes that you are being attracted to that scenario just by showing you the material splendour of it. a set of "lifestyle" videos thriving in a resilient community would be like, a family in a house, cooking on a stove; a guy on a bike, going somwhere; some people working in a field or orchard or forest, collecting food or materials, or planting things. it wouldnt be like WOHahoaho check out that THING unless it was some kind of technofetishist video showing mythical solar powered CLEAN STEEL MILLS and stuff

yes but on the other hand you could easily still see plenty of futuristic technology in a video like that. itd be the difference between good sci-fi and product placement garbage. i also kind of think its slightly missing the mark to say that what you're being shown in the op videos is material splendor. whats emphasized is the way of being allowed, the way in which these tools can be used. although one thing being emphasized doesnt mean the other isnt there

i didnt watch the vids in the op that closely, so i didn't catch the "way of being" thing, i just saw a bunch of "won't ever happen" stuff. i guess the thing with asking for depictions of resilient communities in 2025 is that they're not going to look much different than resilient communities now do? like 15 years isnt long enough to replace technologies like straw bale or cold frames or bicycles or woodstoves with some kind of futuristic thing which is more resilient/sustainable and also has some kind of sci-fi aesthetic i guess. i guess thats why its useful to just have an anywhen setting so you can arrange things however you like and disbelief can be suspended

parabolart posted:

i like to watch this as an antidote to the quivering feelign i get from watching too much of that buffoonery

babyfinland posted:

Critiques and guffaws, hissing and quivering.