Energy Flush

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://www.newstatesman.com/music/2009/05/culture-technology-energy-rave

I was going to do an FT post on this but my day is filling up rapidly so I thought I'd throw it to the wolves here instead.

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

I also don't think it's true that "we can't hear technology any more" - we can even see it!

His CGI mention is pretty apposite: as CGI gets smoother and better, we become more capable of seeing old less-polished CGI. Watching the Matrix today feels like watching an Ed Wood movie. In situations where technology is getting smoother, our ability to perceive (older forms of) technology becomes refined, almost by accident. This wouldn't affect our immediate experience of every new thing if we experienced only new things, one after the other, in a cultural vaccuum: everything would seem as transparent as the previous thing. But... we don't! Every new book affects all previous books. Knowing new sounds, we listen to old sounds and are struck by how ragged their edges are, and we think 'cor that sounds awesome' or 'man how lame' and cherish or ignore accordingly.