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September 04, 2006
Banality
This year's Ars Electronica in Linz was titled "Simplicity - the art of complexity" inspired by John Maeda's discourse about simplicity. When John introduced his "laws" of simplicity in a concentrated and diverting talk I was happy to hear him point out that he actually wants to have his statements understood as questions, as fruitful starting points to think about digital media making room also for a discussion of complexity.
John had pointed out – among many other interesting ideas – the potential strategy of embodiment to make things simpler which intuitively might resonate with many of us. I don't want to have the invisible "clapper" to toggle the lights in my room, I want this physical button on the wall next to the door.
And here comes my big "BUT" (no pun intended).
BUT, embodiement is currently very often mistaken as the best and only way to make live easier. Maybe we are still shocked by the rapid advent of this gigantic flood of abstractions that we have experienced during the past decades caused by the introduction of computers in our everyday lives. We are now facing a trend of artists and designers spitting out countless ideas for new physical objects.
They come up with ideas like throwing LEDs at cars and busses. And I feel empathy for the youthful excitement to waste, destroy and ignore. What worries me is the broad acceptance and promotion of this concept at media festivals like Ars Electronica without even questioning or at least commenting on them. Of course we can throw those toxic batteries into our streets, waste LEDs and demonstrate our attitude towards resources and our immediate environment ("impress your friends and city officials" ). At best this might be seen as a blunt mirroring of one of our major problems: the necessity to produce, consume and dump resources in order to keep our economy going... and stay entertained. At worst this might be seen as just another way to gain instant attention with cheap tricks as we also know them from advertising campaigns.
Giving our problems and questions a physical representation does not necessarily solve them. And if we do not want to mistake simplicity for banality we might want to give things a closer look instead of appreciating them simply because of their physical presence in the form of basic electronics.
Posted by Ralph Ammer at September 4, 2006 09:54 PM