Title |
Life Needs Internet |
Author |
|
Date |
2010 – Present |
Description |
The goal of Life Needs Internet is to document digital culture through handwritten letters. |
 |
|
Context |
The goal of Life Needs Internet is to document how we currently feel about the Internet. This differs per culture, generation, country or even city; there is no global digital culture. While in 2013 39% of the world’s population had access to the Internet, writing a letter is still a technology that is roughly available to anyone. It’s a simple, low-cost and low-tech way to document thoughts and feelings. The global influence of the Internet is preserved through a traditional medium; each handwritten letter is a unique cultural artefact. Together these letters create an archaeological insight into digital culture. |
Statement |
How we feel about a technology today greatly determines how we will behave towards a new technology tomorrow. One day the Internet will become outdated and it will be replaced by a new medium. New technology is often met with the same shortsighted critique of society’s technophobes and technophiles. In order to understand the new, we need to understand the present. In time, perhaps when the Internet is no more, Life Needs Internet will offer the opportunity to reflect and contemplate about the (non-) impact Internet had on our lives. To quote network-scientist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi; “Without cultural artefacts, humanity has no memory, and without memory it cannot learn from its success and failures.” |
URL |
|
Medium |
|
Event |
TEDx Utrecht in Utrecht, the Netherlands. 27 March 2014. URL: vimeo.com/90399317 |
Keywords |
access, collection, digital, knowledge, offline, online, preservation, progress, writing |
Added |
|
ID |
334 |