AE Report #2
Ars electronica keeps me busy… attended first & second symposium today, some interesting stuff there. Took lots of notes, old-school analogue pen&paper style. Seating rows too narrow and uncomfy to even consider balancing a 2kg techbrick on your lap. I bet i won’t be able to decipher half the stuff i scribbled frantically in my torn notebook when i try to typewrite it properly, but if i manage to reconstruct my notes i’ll post them.
I really enjoyed the talk by Joi Ito: weblogs, creation and participation instead of consumption, creative commons, the downfall of media behemoths – all things close to my heart. He also showed some political short films, nice examples of p2p activism.
My highlight however was Bruce Sterling, who delivered his “when blobjects rule the earth“-speech. It’s been a while since i read that speech originally, but as far as i can remember todays rendition was pretty close to the transcript linked above, albeit a good bit shorter and with a slightly shifted emphasis. It also lacked the kinda strange implication that tech triggered steve jobs’ pancreatic cancer, which i always found rather blunt and bothered me quite a lot (but then perhaps he knows something i don’t…). Favourite statement (no actual quote, just paraphrased): “These gizmos are not toys, they’re glamour objects. The elite is willing to suffer for their gizmos”. It’s a great speech to read and even more impressive to hear live. Go read it now if you haven’t done so yet.
Would you like to comment?
Tell me what you think on Twitter: @chriwim.