Form versus Context
This weeks readings, I find, delve into the deepest
of questions. Who came first, the chicken or the egg? What do we owe to
technology for our advances and what does technology owe to us? At this point,
I don't know. However, I did find much of the readings and clips quite
interesting and do have a few things to say on the subject of the interplay
between technology, culture, society, change and events.
I feel this interplay can be seen in the growth and
popularity of the technological powerhouse, Apple. They have placed themselves
perfectly at the centre of the perpetual state of interplay between these
factors. They develop new and appealing products and shift the very culture of
the society which surrounds them. Each release of a new product becomes a
significant technological and social event. But, the question that springs to
mind is the nature of Apple's success. Did they change the market to meet their
ideologies, or, did a string of events lead to the unstoppable rise of a culturally
significant technological giant?
I tend to side with Marshall McLuhan in the belief
in technological determinism, being that, 'Technology is the agent of social
change'. This is seen with Apple and the 'necessity' they have created in
owning their products. I feel this can also relate to Jean Baudrillard when he
discuses the idea of technologically produced 'simulacra', signs which are
copies of other signs. He further discusses the medium, which in this blogs
case is Apple, as being the model for a number of things including ones sense
of self and even the perception of reality itself.
We have a society that is perceived through, and
controlled by, the medium. Bringing to mind the idea of form versus context, as
discussed in the reading Theoretical
Frameworks in the context of flows and ‘machinic’ though. The
technological, aesthetic medium brings about its own context, what was once simply a tool, the computer, has become
a socially and culturally relevant accessory. The iSociety has formed.
