Blog 5

Manovich made a lot of valid points in his reading. The first being the vast growth and various ranges our technological world has come to offer. The "culturally invisible" term is something that can be thought of as "it's not mainstream, its not affordable, and we don't need it because it's not required." Therefore if you don't need it, you don't put the effort into buying the technology or let alone learning about it. Unfortunately for those people in that mindset, the world has recently changed and technology IS the mainstream. You cant hardly get away with out it anymore. Most people work jobs and most jobs require some experience with technology anymore. Whether it be a phone system, managing accounts at financials, or running a cash register, your constantly involved in the technology that we see varying among all different sectors of our culture. The main point is that we have come to a point where it is impossible to neglect todays technological advancements due to being able to function with majority of our society.

The "inventors" go by the names of Liiklider, Sutherland, Nelson, Englebart, Kay, and Negroponte. These people are just as new to me as I imagine they are to anybody else reading this blog. There is no hard core truth to one individual who has developed this whole new revolution of technology. We can say who invented the telegraph, television etc, but who invented technology? As you can see it is a group effort. In fact, I'm willing to bet there are still names out there (not mentioned above) that deserve some sort of credit for their contributions to this technological universe. These few people mentioned above are not well known due to the lack of history on the topic. By stating the word "history" I should be a little more specific. Allow me to say that not enough time has passed to gather much of a history on this subject. I feel like I know what I'm thinking but it's not coming out the way I want it too. Therefore I want to make reference to Cassie T's blog. I think she did a great job of putting the answer to this question into mutual perspective by emphasizing Manovich's article.

"Manovich says the reason IT doesn't have a distinct history is because of economics. He describes how paitings have come to be worth lots of money, thus they are documented. But, computer software is not the same because it doesn't derive any profits from old software. Therefore, it's history has not been documented. No museums exist in the Silicon Valley about computer software."

I have made it sound like this world is impossible to live in without technology. I think a lot of people have made reference to that in their posts on this topic as well. However, I understand what they are trying to say, I believe that we have proven this world can be lived in without technology although it may be tough for most of us. It's be tough because our culture has become so reliable upon technology. As I'm writing this I am reflecting on the whole Y-2K scare we had in the year 2000. It was a lack of knowledge in technology and it proved the point about just how reliable we are on technology and how threatening it is to think of having it taken away. -TM