These are just notes taken during the talk. Nothing structured. Probably an ephemeral post that I'll edit later.
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Electrosmog was a conference last year
early 1980s predictions
paperless office
decentralization of Global Markets
radical reduction of physical mobility
Paperless Office
printing kept up with digital writing, so paper is still used. More paper was produced than ever before. Make sure your predictions take into account all the parallels!
Decentralization
online shops, local distributers.
This works in some ways, but networked technology has in fact made major distributors more efficient and stronger.
The Third Wave bu Alvin Toffler
agricultural
industrial
communicational
electronic cottage-through telecom in the home, we can create a new kind of space where we can both live and work. The original cottage was live and work. The electronic cottage can work in the international stage
Toffler thought it would be adopted everywhere. Free up time for family and social relations. But people find that atll the work connections in the cottage eat up your private sphere and ties you even more into professional processes.
How to get from the global traffic jam to something better?
500 new cars a day are hitting the new big cities every day
there are about 30 of these mid-sized cities in development
in Deli, about 1k new cars appear on the roads
In Nairobi, similar story
Electromagnetic pollution. Cell towers?
Didn't want to stage an event about ecological issues and then fly everyone in, so the premise was no one should travel outside their region. To go to the festival, you have to go to a node in the network.
New Zealand to Canadian Rockies=the network.
second premise=connected conversations
every event has to take place in AT LEAST two locations
also used second life and multiple Skype connections
You would expect the technology to fail, but in fact it worked fine. The crew was experienced and had a 3 or 4 layer deep back up system. Technically it worked great, but still as a festival it had deep, deep problems.
learnings
remote connection works well in an active network.
all nodes connecting in the network have to be active throughout the process, not periodically
Gathering together passive observers did not work (like we had
The remote connection spoiled the local connections. People were in the same space, The events where more people were physically present drew more audience (noth physical and remote). The remote contributions were desperately empty. This was surprising.
Trying to replace the physical presence does not work, but supplementing does.
Why did it fail? He thinks it's because you miss out too much on body language and it doesn't feel like good communication. Physicality matters.
Personally, I also think that people are not yet used to the technology enough yet. Phone calls probably felt very difficult at first and now they feel pretty immediate.
What else was missing?
telepresence denies the libidinal drive for encounter, belonging and identification. Social, emotional, opportunities make us want to come together.
The denial of the physical encounter increases your desire for it.
Coming to a festival or conference makes you feel connected to people in a group you belong to. Telepresence doesn't give you that strongly enough.
I wonder if Vigo will feel this increase in desire. Kids are growing up with a lot more skype and whatnot
Also, it is hard to get laid at a teleconference.
The spectre of Imaginary Media
machines that mediate impossible desires
In fact, bringing people together virtually just makes them want to get on a plane and go see each other all the more. I think that is the summary.
What is the solution?
Accept hybrid and messy solutions
alternative local currencies to slow down movement, sabotage, ecological campaigning, fuel shortages, book reading, natural disasters)