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Get ready to pull the plug. We are approaching an age where we are not limited by technology or geography, according to David Houle, who spoke to the arts and culture community at the Walters Art Museum on October 8, 2010.
Taking the audience on a whirlwind tour of the last 150,000 years, Houle brought us from the hunters and gatherers to the database administrators – and places our current period of innovation and upheaval in context. Just as Moore’s Law predicts an ever-accelerating growth of technological advancement, our own human history, as seen through Houle’s assessment, is moving rapidly toward the Shift Age, just 30 years after the Information Age began.
Marked by uncertainty, change, and fluidity, this is the period where the stalwart industries of old meet their match. As technology continues to become more mobile – brainwaves, anyone? – and the next generation of artists and workers demands a more balanced work/lifestyle, the brick and mortar organizations – such as museums, theaters, and performance venues, will need to work harder to connect with their audiences and retain talent. Houle’s examples of web-driven entrepreneurs, audience-curated content, and personalized experiences reveal the challenges facing arts and culture institutions of the present.
As we move towards this new age, I see a lot of things to be hopeful about – from the increase of biking and traveling light, the new wave of young leaders who typify “social entrepreneurism” and some of the more powerful civil rights/social media movements that have happened online – from the “It Gets Better” Project to tweeting for Iran.
For artists and arts organizations – we have a lot of new toys to play with, and some amazing opportunities for collaboration. We can work with people across the globe in real time. We can engage our audiences in curating and even composing works of art in any discipline. And we can do these things with a tiny device that works on the highest mountain summit. With such a vision of the present and future, how can anything be wrong?
Yet Houle’s presentation described a rosy future rooted in capitalist dreams that may be difficult to deliver in reality. Or conversely, easy to deliver, but with some worrisome side effects. His references to each Age of Man gloss over the losses incurred with each new wave. We grew crops, and began to seize territory, making boundaries where there were few. We embraced industry, and got pollution that has devastated our environment. We harnessed information, and lost jobs and industries. For every two steps forward, there is one step back. And something gets dropped along the way.
Each age is an opportunity for a new kind of greed – and a new kind of problem. Houle speaks to business leaders – people whose job it is to expand and increase profit. Some of those people and businesses will do what they can to take advantage. And the rest of us? We’ll do as we have done every past age – maximize the benefits, and create associated issues by sheer volume. From monocropping to industrial waste, sweatshop fashions to identity theft, new innovations have also bred new troubles.
For artists – we run the risk of becoming a brand – losing sight of the process of creation and exploration in the steady tide of status updates and self-promotion. Constant innovators, we may find ourselves using tools that cause harm (brainwaves, anyone?) to our own health. Arts organizations will feel compelled to invest in new methods and technologies, and may feel on tightrope between retaining long-time patrons and attracting new audiences.
Actually, we all have a balancing act ahead of us. Personally, as I embrace the new, I want to remember the old way of doing things. One way I deal with this is to have a monthly Media Free Week, an opportunity to take a media fast from the major distractions of the internet, videos, TV, radio, and even print media. I have rarely been able to fast 100% – it is difficult, though not impossible to stop receiving e-mails for a week. Regardless, I take this break, with my husband, so we can remember what REALLY matters – the people and life behind the words, images, and pixels. We take walks, we repair our house, we see friends, we spend time with family. And most importantly, we slow down. A lot. We realize that going to bed early isn’t impossible, and in fact might be healthy. We eat our food without distractions, and really taste the greens, the tofu, the rice. We think about our immediate goals and future plans, without being re-directed to websites to buy things to help achieve our goals. We pay attention to what we are doing, not how we will tweet about it later. It is a small thing, but a way that we keep control, and also give it up. By stepping away from the media, we interrupt the patterns that we become linked to the rest of the month.
We cannot stop the future, it would be rather disturbing if we could. But we can be present and rational, can look carefully at new innovations and see their benefits and risks. As artists we can take responsibility for showing another way. We have the reputation of being innovators for society – we also have the power to show the world what we might lose along the way.
This is the beginning of a dialogue, I hope. I don’t believe I have the answers – I am no futurist. The next few hours are as murky to me as the next decade. But it is clear to me that our track record of embracing progress has brought many gifts, and destroyed many things in the process. Let’s try again, but let’s do it with a bit more thoughtfulness.
WYPR’s Tom Hall interviews David Houle, author of “The Shift Age”.
Part 2 of WYPR’s Tom Hall interview with David Houle, author of “The Shift Age”.
Part 3 of WYPR’s Tom Hall interview with David Houle, author of “The Shift Age”.
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