Reviewed by Jacob Knowles-Smith Norman Mailer hated television. He distrusted email. He even hated plastic. Marshall McLuhan was probably right, to some extent, to suggest that Mailer had a Victorian attitude towards technology. Other critics, past and present, will probably find sympathy with Mailer’s assertion that man’s relationship with technology is some kind of Faustian […]
The IT Impact: Information Technology in the Developing World
Digital and mobile devices can bring huge improvements to the health and lives of the very poorest. Vanessa Zainzinger takes a look at the organisations attempting to bridge the technological divide Last month, the non-profit organisation Worldreader held a video contest. The first price was a trip, but instead of the five star hotel one […]
Spamazon: ebook Junk and Content Farms
As Google tackles the content farms gaming their system, the ebook platform has become the newest territory for ripp-off content. Vanessa Zainzinger talks to Mike Essex, author of an influential post on the topic, about the war on spam Mike Essex has really hit a nerve. One post on UK-based digital marketing agency Koozai’s blog […]
Media and Tech: Data Exhaust and Consumption Tracking
Vanessa Zainzinger follows the breadcrumbs to tomorrow’s tracking trends Chances are high that you have already used Google today. As you typed in what you were looking for, scanned through the results and clicked on the link you needed, you provided Google with plenty of valuable information. To an extent, you have influenced which links […]
YouGov and Political Metrics
The internet has long promised a golden age of metrics, online polling organisation YouGov is hoping to track our political opinions “YouGov is the authoritative measure of public opinion and consumer behaviour. It is our ambition to supply a live stream of continuous, accurate data and insight into what people are thinking and doing all […]
Designs for Living: Jordi Parra
Although you may not know his name, it’s likely you’re familiar with Jordi Parra’s design work Chances are you saw this beautiful Spotify device that was all over the internet a few months ago. The player makes novel use of RFID tags to create exchangeable playlists linking back to the Spotify service. Although haling from […]
Mariko Mori’s Cyborg Surrealism
As genetic engineering creates hybrid forms, Thyrza Nichols Goodeve speculates on post-human art and what it means for the Freudian unconscious Mariko Mori: Miko no inori (Link of the Moon): 1996: digital film, 61 x 71 cm “I demand that he who still refuses… to see a horse galloping on a tomato should be looked […]
The Artists’ Book: A Matter of Self-Reflection
This essay was originally written by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve for the exhibition catalogue One of a Kind: An Exhibition of Unique Artist’s Books, curated by Heide Hatry for Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Spring 2011. One of a Kind continues at the HP Garcia Gallery, Chelsea, NYC, from 19th April-14th May, 2011. Many thanks to […]
Brazil: Phonobase Music Services
Brazilian label and distribution company offers artists a unique way of doing business What: A music services company and record label with an emphasis on innovative digital marketing strategies. The company blog is a stimulating source for stories about copyright and technological issues around music. Where: São Paulo, Brazil History: Founded 2007 by Juliano Polimeno. […]
John Battelle – The Search: How Google And Its Rivals Rewrote The Rules Of Business And Transformed Our Culture
Chris Mitchell John Battelle’s The Search is more than just a potted history of Google, although that company looms large throughout his book; rather, it’s a book which takes stock of Google’s giddy rise, the search engine wars between Google, Yahoo! and MSN, and the arrival of online contextual advertising which has irrevocably changed the […]
Lawrence O’Toole : Pornocopia : Talking Dirty
Chris Mitchell meets Lawrence O’Toole, author of Pornocopia: Porn, Sex, Technology and Desire It’s a well-worn joke that any dinner-party discussion of the Internet will inevitably include a mention of finding pornography while on- line. As Lawrence O’Toole points out in his book, Pornocopia: Porn, Sex, Technology And Desire, the Internet has been the biggest […]
James Gleick: Faster
Chris Mitchell Faster is a survey of the speed of modern life. Subtitled "The acceleration of just about everything", its a book which takes time out to stop and think about the breakneck pace at which we live our lives and the ramifications of doing so. Unsurprisingly, technology has played a big part in increasing […]
Kodwo Eshun: More Brilliant Than The Sun
Chris Mitchell Technology is often seen as having a negative influence on music. Ever since the advent of sound generated by machines rather than traditional instruments, there have been dire predictions about the death of the Song. More Brilliant Than The Sun takes the opposite attitude and celebrates these strange new technologically-based forms of music, […]
Laurence O’Toole: Pornocopia
Robin Askew "To write, as I have, with an enthusiasm for something so loathed in certain quarters is maybe asking for trouble," acknowledges Independent, New Statesman and Daily Telegraph contributor Laurence OToole in his introduction to this excellent survey of "porn, sex, technology and desire". Hes certainly seen enough of the stuff during his three […]
William Gibson: All Tomorrow’s Parties
Chris Mitchell William Gibson is never going to be able to live down being the sci-fi author who coined the term "cyberspace". First used in his debut novel Neuromancer which was published during the early 1980s, it was soon picked up on as an uncannily accurate description of the then-emerging Internet. His latest novel is […]
Kevin Kelly – New Rules For The New Economy
Chris Mitchell Despite its dry title, Kevin Kelly’s book isn’t just another self-styled business bible for the information age. Instead, it’s an overview of what he terms the “network economy”, which is not only superseding the old paradigms of the industrial economy but transforming how we live. The network economy has been brought about by […]
Charles Leadbeater: Living On Thin Air
Chris Mitchell Thanks to the globalising effect of new technologies, Britain is transforming from an industrialised economy to a knowledge based economy. Unlike previous generations, many of us make our livings not by producing anything tangible but through the absorption and analysis of information. This, maintains Charles Leadbeater, is the advent of a new economy […]
John Baxter: George Lucas: A Biography
Chris Mitchell Throughout his film-making career, George Lucas has continually pushed back the boundaries of technology in order to realise his ideas on the silver screen. John Baxters biography of the man is not only an account of Lucas personal history but also the transformative effect Lucas fascination with technology has had on the entire […]
N. Katherine Hayles: How We Became Posthuman: Virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature and informatics
Björn Wiman “I am Human”, cries the protagonist in Will Self’s novel Great Apes. A phrase that may sound like a sturdy truism, in Self’s novel rings heavily: the protagonist has waken one morning only to find all human beings transmogrified into chimpanzees. The reader and the protagonist are both kept in the same suspense: […]
Alan Weisman: Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World
Thomas Handy Loon Colombia’s Gaviotas is a community only dreamers could visualize, and only outcasts could build. Surrounded by rebel-infested llanos (savannas) and vast coca plantations, the presence of its peaceful rhythms and homegrown technologies is as hopeful as it is unlikely. A super- efficient pump fills water cisterns every time children play on the […]
Michael Marshall Smith: One Of Us
Antony Johnston One of Us. A powerful phrase — belonging, kinship, camaraderie. Familiar concepts, though this book deals with them in ways you may not expect. Initially our protagonist, Hap Thompson, seems anything but One of Us. An outsider, a loner with no life, an ex-wife, forced to live in exile from his hometown. The […]
Erik Davis: TechGnosis
Chris Mitchell It’s traditional to think of technology as the epitomy of rationalism, functioning with the mechanical precision of mathematical logic and mindlessly performing laboursaving tasks for its human creators. But Erik Davis argues that the use of technology within our lives has managed to generate a whole new mindset of myths and mysticism which […]
Bruce Sterling: Distraction
Chris Mitchell If the novel of ideas has found a refuge within the 20th century, it’s within science fiction. Sci-fi lends itself perfectly to complex speculation about the future and what’s in store for the human race. The only problem is, sci-fi novels tend to function on such galactic-spanning levels that characters get reduced to […]
William Gibson : All Tomorrow’s Parties : Waiting For The Man
Antony Johnston has a meeting of minds with the elusive William Gibson about his new novel All Tomorrow’s Parties William Gibson needs no introduction. But he’s going to get one anyway. Gibson coined the term ‘cyberspace,’ visualising a worldwide communications net eleven years before the World Wide Web was born. His debut novel Neuromancer won […]
J.G. Ballard : Crash : Prophet With Honour
David B. Livingstone on why J.G. Ballard is one of the most vital writers of the 20th century “This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do not publish!” It was with these ironic words that an editor at J.G. Ballard’s publisher futilely urged the suppression of Crash over a quarter-century ago, a book which many have […]