All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Another fantastic, dark, mind-blowing, visually-rich documentary by the BBC's crown jewel, Adam Curtis. All I can say is: WATCH!

And I can also share the following ominously prescient quote:

“It is fashionable to suggest that cyber-space is some island of the blessed where people are free to indulge and express their individuality, this is not true. I have seen many people spill out their emotions - their guts - online and I did so myself until I began to see that I had commodified myself.

Commodification means that you turn something into a product which has a money value. In the 19th Century, commodities were made in factories, by workers who were mostly exploited. But I created my interior thoughts as commodities for the corporations that owned the board I was posting to - like Compuserve or AOL - and that commodity was sold onto other consumer entities as entertainment.

Cyber-space, is a Black Hole; it absorbs energy and personality and then re-presents it, as an emotional spectacle. It is done by businesses that commodify human interaction and emotion - and we are getting lost in the spectacle.”

Carmen Hermosillo

Gin, Television, and Cognitive Surplus

Clay Shirky.

This video has been around for a while, but it is still inspiring in that we still haven't realized that potential of the internet to catalyze cooperative endeavors. I've been working on a series of art projects exploring "far out" potential social networks (nothing too practical). This video just reiterates something that we all take for granted now, but it quotes some impressive numbers...