In reflection, I think there was very little balanced critique of the social effects of the emerging technology at ETCON.
Just as there was a topical centre that was hard to name being described by the subjects and speakers around it there was however a “spiritual centre”, a belief not overtly stated, but was nevertheless being circled I think by almost every speaker (J.C Herz, Clay, Geoff Cohen, Cory and Steven Johnson in particular), and everyone speaking to each other.
This article on the work of Edwin Schlossberg by Steve Heller in Metropolis magazine seems to me to nail that spiritual centre in one phrase: the belief that “cooperative relationships between strangers” are to be encouraged as beneficial to all.
It should perhaps come as no suprise that Schlossberg was a pupil of that arch technoidealist Bucky Fuller…
“Edwin Schlossberg has long dreamed of building an immense high-tech game arena in the middle of Times Square where hundreds of people playing together at any hour would control power grids, move investments, or create structures to revitalize urban spaces.
If this sounds suspiciously like pop-culture utopia, it’s because Schlossberg–the grand master of human interactivity–believes that games and other shared experiences inspire cooperative relationships among strangers.”
I think at the centre of ETCON, powering it, was this nodal-point – an idea burning so brightly we could only look to it’s edges to understand. The belief in the benefit of technologically-enabled cooperative realtionships between stangers. It was Bucky’s technoidealism, coupled like a binary-star to John Nash’s Equilibrium.
I have a strict rule on aeroplanes, which is to only watch films that I would never go and watch in a cinema, or hire/buy on video/DVD. This exposes me to movies my predjudices and/or friends would never let me see. Case in point: “A beautiful mind”. I’m glad I did though, just for the (I’m sure) over-simplified but effective explanation of Nash’s Equilibrium it featured:
“Nash is with a group of friends at a Princeton graduate-student party when he is suddenly struck by an idea that forms the basis of his “rational choice” game theory, a theory for which he would eventually become famous. In a cinematic version of what would become the “Nash Bargaining Solution,” we witness Nash’s friends ogling one extremely beautiful blonde woman and four less-ravishing but still attractive brunettes. The other students all intend to seduce the blonde, and one even alludes to Adam Smith’s theory of zero-sum game competition the best man wins, and the others are left out in the cold, literally in this case. Nash, in a sudden flash, realizes that the basis of economic theory does not have to be a zero-sum game, but rather one that might assure mutually beneficial outcomes for all the parties involved (what would later become Nash’s “equilibrium” theory). Nash proposes that the students avoid seducing the blonde, since they will get in each others’ way and alienate both the blonde and the brunettes. Instead, by ignoring the blonde and concentrating on the brunettes, each will benefit (except, one supposes, the blonde). By seeing the barren outcome of their zero-sum competitive approach, they can adjust their strategy through cooperative bargaining and each, so to speak, enjoy the fruit of his efforts.”
I’ve been thinking for a while about “the things we try and tell ourselves” through our stories good and bad (film, games, tv, photography, imagery, consumer-design, fashion) about the “innerstructure”. Wonder what else will emerge (no pun intended) while we’re under the influence of the Nash/Fuller binary constellation.
In the last year, we’ve heard politcians and business leaders pepper their speeches with the language of interconnectedness, and at ETCON we heard many use phrases similar to Natalie Jeremijenko‘s “structures of participation” without much expansion on what the best structure would be and why – only that Hollywood was out to stop us before we even start to explore that.
Even though I don’t think our brains could have taken it, maybe we could have got there with another week of the same people expanding on that side of things.
At least we had a start, and we have the blogs as the beginnings of a “structure for participation” to take it further. It’s encouraging that technologists should be so socially aware of the impacts of their field – as opposed maybe to the majority of scientists?
I, for one, am ready to rally behind the banner of Bucky and John…
Petafloptimism 