Old New Technologies #1
An old rotary phone connected to an Arduino Uno and Processing. The videos in this repository are not the ones presented in the installation. They are retrived from free online stock videos webpages just to make the Processing sketch to work.
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Computer technologies are ubiquitous in modern life. They mediate many of our daily actions, particularly those involving other humans, providing us information of all sorts and connectiveness with almost anything. This situation, in addition to the rises of artificial intelligence, the internet of things and quantum computers, have prompted many important discussions about the way humans and machines relate (or should relate in the near future). A general sense of something “human” being lost is felt by many people, yet, what are we losing and what ́s the responsibility of those digital technologies? It is not an easy answer. I believe the change in recent decades of our “feeling of passing time” is perhaps one of the most noticeable traces of computers and digital technologies. Modern life demands fast and quick answers and we have become used to that “quickness”. In fact, we humans actually demand it! We need fast connections to check transports schedules, ordering food, visualize online videos, access Wikipedia articles, download movies, check e-mail and many other things. We, the citizens in urban centers, live in a hurry which brings up the question of how digital technologies are shaping our sense of time. This installation proposes to merge old and new digital technologies to create an experience on “slowing down the passage of time”. It does so by inviting individuals to listen and see specific audiovisual postcards. Dial an old rotary telephone and choose your postcard. Breath. Take your time, recover your time. Enjoy. Breath.
CREDITS:
Idea: Filipe Lopes
Technological implementation: Filipe Lopes