Re: [-empyre-] Re: trends in airport novels

["wendy joy" <w-joy@zip.com.au>]

together in electric dreams!  yah! georgio moroder, martin rushant and the
human league - wooooooooo baby! last night we watched matrix followed by
jumpin jack flash and whoopee was more crotch grabbing for me than keanu OF
COURSE!!  (remember when we watched that elvy?!!  in greens road?!Q).  yah!
this world can be technophobic for generations to come - while in the mean
time golden ages of tech fade into the past.  the apollo boy engineers with
their slide rules are still a bit of an apogee for me (blush giggle) -
todays software engineers are tomorrows tv repairmen and half the world
still don't have electricity....

 i like your grip on 20th C sci fi Melinda

ciao bella



----- Original Message -----
From: "Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>
To: <empyre@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2002 5:20 PM
Subject: [-empyre-] Re: trends in airport novels


> -weny wrote:
>  > snow crash - wow
> >    ... it was the first airport novel i bought for
>
> its interresting when an airport novel shapes our realities.. :) i guess
> neal stephenson deserved that ars electronica net.art award.
>
> john wrote:
> > along way to putting it in the hands of the general public. its like
> > "net art by numbers"
>
> and snowcrash also talked about the distain for popularised and general
> access to tools, going hand in hand with the promotion of singular
> artist/hacker as genius...
>
> It all fits neatly into the very 70's and 80's retro aesthetic that
pervades
> everything now.. , just as the aesthetics of the 80 ands and 90s harked
back
> to the 50s and 60s as a time of simplicity and honesty and stability,
> everyone knew thier place in socitey .. now we hark back to the 80s .. so
we
> like media art that is hardedged, eg the sort of java.art just
commissioned
> by the guggenheim.. electronic art that is obviously made by a computer, a
> friendly non threatening computer that simply manipulates shapes.. a
> computer which we grew up with playing pacman and tarrrus, nothing too
> complicted, nothing that is too demanding of the viewer.
>
> i was reminded of this a few nights  ago when i happened to see "Electric
> Dreams" from 1984, produced by richrad branson, staring 3d video graphics,
a
> Fairlight, and dedicated to univac1.  the computer becomes an fully fledgd
> AI within a few hours of being activated and takes
> over the main characters love life,theres big frizzy curly hair, bad
> frocks.... anyway the story isnt important ,
> but really interrestingly the hard edged, low res, 3d strobing video
> (computer) graphics arent that dissimilar from what i see reproduced now
as
> net.art.. seems like nothings changed in the last 20 years at all.
>
> i keep throwing out teh "why do we go back to simplicity" line.. our
> computers are capable of much muchmuchmore than we are demanding of them..
> and i think its undervaluing the general public to think that all they
want
> from net.art or 3d.art is a one liner.
>
> maybe as a society we are still very technophbic.. and the idea of
multiple
> levels of intellectual and emotional interaction with our machines is a
bit
> scary.  wonder what happens when the playstayion generation take over..
>
>
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