Re: [-empyre-] Re: corporate divisive PDAs

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>]

> Is art for the PDA and/or Information Appliance necessarily an elistist
> form?  Jun-Ann's message almost seem sto presuppose that somehow the
> ownership of a PDA is inclusive with the ownership of a laptop or cell
> phone.  Taken into context with the idea that under 15% of the world has
Net
> access, it is safe to say that this genre is of the margin.

but there is that interresting phenomena that happens  where technology
leapfrogs..like (excuse the term) developing nations who havent ever built a
stable electricty or land based telephone stucture but have extensive mobile
coverage..they skip a stage and just use the practical bits which make sense
in their particulra area.

maybe what pda's and their hybrids and mutations will become are the next
walkmans - mobile computing for the masses  - as they are tiny cost a
fraction of the amount of a laptop, and will soon be able to do everything..
so maybe pda art now it is designing for and questioning the future..---

however ---

> usually expensive) technology have any agenda to it?  Of course.
Technology
> is never neutral.  WHenever any technology is employed, it's issues and
> agends follow right along.
> IMO, where the artist come in is to test those issues through the
> exploration of techniques, interventions and such that use various devices
> to see/show their influence on culture and society.

yes the first wave of net.artists did this on the net..and the second
wave -the "flash generation" if you like- dont care.. the technology has
just become transparent - so they don't bother to question it any more.. it
just is another delivery medium..
maybe the same thing happens with pda's  -  the phase of exploration , then
as they become ubiquitious it is followed by the phase of  transparency.

melinda