In Raymond Williams' article "The Technology and Society", the relationship between technology and society is entangled and ambiguous in my understanding. From his description of the important role of television in our society, I can assume that society incites the birth of technology while technology impels the growth of society. Williams mentioned in the article that inventions are accidental throughout the social development. In my opinion, the impact that the new technology brings is inevitable. One can never tell the cause and effect between them, however, the improvement that our technology brings to society is enormous. Since the invention of television, it shortened the distance between human-beings themselves and the world. In addition, our perspectives are always manipulated and altered by the content of televisions. So technology is powerful and the society is gradually overpowered by it.
Also, the development of technology gives many artist more space to explore the world of art. William Wegman utilized the technology of film to create lots of experimenting clips of randomness in life. From the "crooked stick" to that "I own" clip, I can see that Wegman was fully exploring and expressing his own style of art, even though he's more interested in dog pictures.
William Wegman-Hansel und Gretel
Anthony Goicolea'sAmphibians is also a good example of experimental film. From his work I can see his interests in multiplication. With the editing technique, he created multiple same characters running around in the same frame in Amphibians.
In general, society stimulates the development of technology, while technology improves society providing more and more space for artists to experiment and create.
I completely agree with your idea that technology and society are inter-connected with each other and work cohesively in our lives today. While society stimulates technology, technology improves society as well.
However, as well as improving society, it is also important to realize that technology is not always considered a positive advancement. For instance, last week, when we discussed Web 2.0 in class, it seemed as though technology is gradually becoming more accessible and being utilized for false purposes. The accessibility of Web 2.0 has helped people invade others privacy, through social networks, such as Facebook. Keeping in mind that technology is eternal and will keep progressing in the future, imagine what Web 3.0 will be like! It will probably destroy our world and soon we will be taken over by robots! :)
It is always fun to see artists utilizing more and more of the available technology. As a computer scientist, i always think about art as paintings and scriptures. But the time has changed, artists are not limited to the two crèche kind of art anymore. I like to see in the next ten years, what will happen to the art world. It probably will be pretty cool!
A lot of artists want to get their hands on the latest technology just to see what it will do. When Nam June Paik got the first video camera in the US, he videoed the pope in NYC and showed his tape the same day in a night club. We noticed that Wegman is using Facebook and David Lynch is using Twitter, etc.
I completely agree with your idea that technology and society are inter-connected with each other and work cohesively in our lives today. While society stimulates technology, technology improves society as well.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as well as improving society, it is also important to realize that technology is not always considered a positive advancement. For instance, last week, when we discussed Web 2.0 in class, it seemed as though technology is gradually becoming more accessible and being utilized for false purposes. The accessibility of Web 2.0 has helped people invade others privacy, through social networks, such as Facebook. Keeping in mind that technology is eternal and will keep progressing in the future, imagine what Web 3.0 will be like! It will probably destroy our world and soon we will be taken over by robots! :)
It is always fun to see artists utilizing more and more of the available technology. As a computer scientist, i always think about art as paintings and scriptures. But the time has changed, artists are not limited to the two crèche kind of art anymore. I like to see in the next ten years, what will happen to the art world. It probably will be pretty cool!
ReplyDeleteA lot of artists want to get their hands on the latest technology just to see what it will do. When Nam June Paik got the first video camera in the US, he videoed the pope in NYC and showed his tape the same day in a night club. We noticed that Wegman is using Facebook and David Lynch is using Twitter, etc.
ReplyDelete