[iDC] The 50-Year Computer

[helen varley jamieson]

i have no problem at all with change. it's unnecessary (profit-driven) 
obsolescence that bothers me.

h : )

Simon Biggs wrote:
> I have used computers as central to my creative practice for over 30 
> years. In that time computers have changed hugely and how and why I 
> use them has also changed radically. Until the mid 1980’s it never 
> crossed my mind that I could use a computer for anything else but 
> programming and a creative practice based on that. Then Apple 
> developed the commercial WIMP environment and I started doing my 
> writing, administration and other stuff on this machine. In the late 
> 1980’s internet access came along and I started to use it for email 
> and shifting data around. The early 1990’s we got the web and very 
> quickly I found myself using it for more advanced communications and, 
> most importantly, as a production and distribution platform for 
> creative work. This conflation of computation, networking and 
> communications was a profound change in computing and communications. 
> I almost stopped using the postal system and my phone use dropped off 
> like a stone.
>
> More recently, with improvements in bandwidth and miniaturisation, we 
> have seen the emergence of rich networked interactive media 
> distributed across mobile platforms that are geo-locative aware. I am 
> just beginning to work with the consequences and creative 
> opportunities implicit in these developments and have the feeling they 
> will represent a change of equal significance to earlier developments 
> in the technology.
>
> Already we watch movies and listen to the radio over the net, using a 
> computer. All our music is on our hard drive or iPhone and the stereo 
> props up the back door. We shop online and build our communities via 
> email lists and SL-like environments. We do all this on the move.
>
> I am sorry but I have to disagree with Helen’s observation and Pat’s 
> idea of the 50 year computer. Computers have changed enormously over 
> the past few decades and how we use them, and they use us, has changed 
> too. I want things to go on changing. Change is good. It challenges 
> our condition.
>
> Regards
>
> Simon

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helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst       
helen at creative-catalyst.com   
http://www.creative-catalyst.com
http://www.avatarbodycollision.org
http://www.upstage.org.nz
http://www.writerfind.com/hjamieson.htm
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