Technogical not Patriarchol control

I have always had a love/hate relationship with technology and the changes it effects in society.  I remember when first encountering the idea of public, online journalling that my first thoughts were positive and negative.  On the positive side, here was a use of technology which opened up the possibility of engaging in larger scale dialogues so that ideas and other perspectives could be presented and explored beyond your close circle of friends.  Surely this form of mass dialectic would direct us in a more positive direction quickly. Cool!  But then, any written diary is already a suspect document.  After all when we record an event, who hasn't fantasized about "some day when I am dead and gone, they will find this letter, or this journal or this picture and then they will know the truth or know how brilliant I truly am/was."  The truth?  Or the truth as the chronicler wants it remembered or sees it.

Fast forward to today and it would seem that most of the positives and the negatives have been magnified.  We have visual and written diaries like Facebook, and Twitter where our every moment is captured in a film script like sort of way, that exaggerates reality and promotes a surreal drama or pastiche of a life lived.  Hmmmmm?  Negative or positive?  We all want our 15 minutes of fame don't we.

So here I write in "my" blog knowing that everything is preserved on the internet and that someone will read this (even before I am dead and gone).   How then can that even be interpreted?   Ironically, I worry about that.  My intention with this blog is to give some insight into my artistic practice and yet this doesn't seem to be an artistic discussion.  I know for me, that everything comes out in the art some how.  And, one of my chief concerns about the world today, is the lack of ability of humanity to communicate and connect, notwithstanding the explosion in the technology to facilitate just that.  We are more and more disconnected and alone.

Even this blog is evidence of that.  I wanted to write on this more from the perspective of how technology has become the centre of all our work, community and family.  As an artist I must share with the public or they do not know I have created work.  More and more of my time is eaten up with websites, Facebook invites, etc.,  so that there is a real risk that my day to day becomes more about the technology than the art.  Beyond art, families use Facebook rather than getting together, text rather than call, and call rather than visit. If you are not on the net, you are more out of the loop than ever.  If technology is not the centre of your focus you are unconnected to a larger community and you are alone.  But then with technology it is like sharing a kiss through a glass wall and we are still alone.

just a thought.