I wrote about the lecture by John Thackara I was going to attend. I went there and it was pretty interesting. My impressions:
Thackara gave the talk primarily for the new batch of students of an institution called DasArts which trains performance artists or something along those lines. I don’t really think it matters what exactly they do. They are a bunch of artistic people doing very artistic things.
Thackara’s talk fits into the current theme which is called The Grand Integration Game.
Thackara gave a very interesting lecture about how design and high technology can and should improve the way in which we live.
His opening statement is about the wave of technological determinism that has brought us where we are now. Now should be the first time when we are able to and when it is necessary to foresee the possible effects technology might have before releasing it into the wild.
I have some issues with the above:
Why has the need to rethink the scientifical process arisen now? Is it now more urgent than before or are people simply more aware?
How can we foresee all the possible effects of technology? Sometimes (maybe even usually) technologies are used in ways that were completely unforeseen by their original creators.
Isn’t this just a version of the Precautionary Principle?
Thinking whether or not it is wise to use certain technologies is fine but getting global concensus is impossible. It only takes one country to clone people or create self-reproducing nanotechnology.
Then he described ways in which we can alter the current state of things for the better. He gave us a set of principles (you might also call them values or best practices) which were permeating each of these redesigns of the world.
He did not get through all of the principles due to a lack of time but as far as I got them they were something like:
iPod time vs. fixed time
Closer rather than faster
Human Agency
and in general stuff like: humanity, durability, flexibility, dynamicity, organicity
Most of the examples came down to employ even more technology but desiging more humane and more ecologically sound systems with them.
So out with the big inflexible, inhuman system that nobody understands and wants and bring in the new systems which empower people to do the stuff they want. Sounds pretty good to me.
