Technology and Society (Chapters 4-6)

Just as the quote, “History repeats itself”. In life there are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns. Technology repeats itself as well! The first groundbreaking technologies were pioneers to what we have today. The magic book is an example of that. The printed book gathers the readers and provides them with an experience in which they emerge in a digital world from page to page. The illustrations come alive and the reader is no longer reading because they are experiencing a virtual reality. This is what we have today with the iPad, Kindle, and other tablets. We make new media forms out of older ones. This chapter explains how we borrow from and depend on other media forms, which explains the art of REMEDIATION! All the products that we have today from cell phones, laptops to cars, are all examples of remediation. All those things have been created through the refashioning of previous objects for the sake of improving the human experience. Aha!

Fakeshop project is another reinvention of media. It provides an experience that is both physical and virtual. This piece of digital art possessed the capability of creating a moment.  Fakeshop mixes the virtual with the physical which reflects the diversity in the digital world. Digital designers and entertainment corporations are devising new combinations of older forms. Just like the fakeshop the World Wide Web is a mixture of forms. Web designers aren't necessarily creating new forms instead they are borrowing from older forms. But the web itself has diverged and divided into many forms, based on the needs of their audience.
The World Wide Web went beyond other forms. It is so important because it is “…so tightly integrated into our social and economic networks and our physical environment” (Bolter, Gramola, 120). We are highly dependent on this form of media because it’s not just a series of web pages instead we interact with it in many ways in our daily lives. Just like the Text Rain, Wooden Mirror, Magic Book and Fakeshop the World Wide Web engages the viewer and adds to the physical manifestation of the viewers identity. All these interfaces reflect us as we use it. Every time we use it we bring a part of ourselves to the digital application to which we interact with.

Living in a world of “tangible media” and “mixed realities” explains how humans are in relationship with virtual technologies. It is said that technology won’t out think us; however, that’s not what I’m afraid of necessarily. More so predicting the unpredictable between technology and society. From high-speed networks, computers, e-commerce, wireless to mobility, our society is growing highly dependent on technology. It’s directly linked to everything in our everyday lives. What happens when the increasing popular technology cease to exist? The technological era has immensely transformed how we interact and socialize.  The human race has allowed technology to be in charge. Technology is constantly advancing but as humans we hardly have time to keep up. What will we do? Or is it too late…

How scary is this?