"Digital Witness"

Today, I watched a video on Australian Design firm Buro North's creation: a spin-off of ground level traffic lights. The video spiraled into popularity this morning as a novelty; however, pedestrian-level traffic lights has been adopted by Augsburg, Germany, as early as April 25th, 2016. The city had caved in to the evolved habits of their citizens, and decided to accommodate this habit. Many find this act hilarious and pathetic; they frown upon our tendency to depend more and more on digital reality rather than staying present with the 'real world." I am one of those people. I fear of future generations' dependency on VSLR and digital reality. It scares me that soon people may program and design digital avatars to interact with however they like and potentially never need to learn to empathize and interact with real people. This leads to many implications. What of the people who never step out of their comfort zone and meet another human being, a potential life partner? Will this mean a continued and significant decrease in generating population? Will this necessitate an increase in digital dependency in all facets of our lifestyles? 

And as I ponder upon my participation in IMPACT, I wonder if i'm encouraging this type of behavior via the items I've made: i.e. interactive instruments through the makey-makey and Kate Stone's interactive physical-digital touch technology. I'd like to think that these instruments could help me create an experience that can ultimately enhance an audience's engagement with the present and offer an opportunity for introspection. At the same time, however, I am depending on these multimedia technologies to create this experience. I wonder if it's necessary to depend on technology to create the effect I want--that is, a certain type of introspection and engagement with the present. In fact, is one type of performance more prestigious than the other? Surely, as of the present many would agree that the more technologically advanced an entertainment production is the more spectacular the show. But at what point does a spectacle become a corrupting mechanism that inhibits introspection and only creates distraction? Does that really matter? 

This stream of thought reminded me of Marshall McLuhan and IMPACTer's discussion of various philosophers at our last meeting; you can read a great summary on McLuhan by Dr. John Gilbert here. I would love to read in detail his works to fully understand his message. The medium is the message, McLuhan said. What does the medium really tell us and can we be alert enough to avoid the negative consequences? 

I will conclude with an insert of St. Vincent's song "Digital Witness," the inspiration for the post title. I think the lyrics are worth noting... "People turn their TV on, it looks just like a window..."