{"id":239,"date":"2009-12-08T21:05:20","date_gmt":"2009-12-08T21:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp\/?p=239"},"modified":"2009-12-08T21:05:20","modified_gmt":"2009-12-08T21:05:20","slug":"ask_not_what_technology_can_do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/2009\/12\/ask_not_what_technology_can_do\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Not What Technology Can Do For You, But What It Will Do To You"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"factory.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/factory.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px; float: right;\" height=\"255\" width=\"350\" \/>After watching <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2009\/12\/07\/flypt\/\">this video<\/a> for Flypt, an iPhone app that let&#8217;s users remix music using some basic effects, I got to thinking again about the new ways these and other programs are bringing musical creativity into people&#8217;s lives. No, it&#8217;s not necessarily the equivalent of learning to play the cello, but it&#8217;s flexing muscles in people that I assume most music professionals appreciate seeing toned. Doesn&#8217;t the future of music seem brighter when playing music isn&#8217;t simply turning on the radio but actually thinking about the process of making sound? In some ways, it seems like a return the engagement experienced when lots of people played an instrument &#8220;a little&#8221; to meet family\/community demands, but with the added bonus that professional music is also all around us.<\/p>\n<p>It also brought to mind once again <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Remix-Making-Commerce-Thrive-Economy\/dp\/1594201722\">Lessig&#8217;s book<\/a> (and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/bookclub\/\">our conversation<\/a> on MTG) covering the role of remixing in contemporary culture. From simple linking to <a href=\"http:\/\/gawker.com\/5421843\/where-did-the-web-touch-you\">complete overhauls of message<\/a>, the way we are digesting information and trading ideas is exploding off the screen. I admit I worry it&#8217;s all flying at me so fast that I&#8217;m missing a great deal of the actual content and only catching 25% of any particular thought. Is my mind truly benefiting or is it slowly crawling deeper and deeper into a hole due to idea shell shock? Maybe perpetual stimulation is not to be feared, but adjusting to this kind of high-speed collective processing is exhausting (good thing I didn&#8217;t <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2009\/12\/07\/questions-from-econo.html\">go to Oberlin<\/a>, then, I guess). In the end, I know I&#8217;m jumping the gun, because we&#8217;re still playing with these new tools\/toys&#8211;twisting and pulling on them to see not just what new technologies can do, but what we can do and become alongside them. Maybe that process will never end, but how profoundly will it end up altering the way we think about, well, everything?<\/p>\n<p><i><b>UPDATE<\/b>: <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2009\/12\/09\/american-data-diet\/\">Information Overload: Americans Consume 34 GB of Data Daily<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After watching this video for Flypt, an iPhone app that let&#8217;s users remix music using some basic effects, I got to thinking again about the new ways these and other programs are bringing musical creativity into people&#8217;s lives. No, it&#8217;s not necessarily the equivalent of learning to play the cello, but it&#8217;s flexing muscles in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}