The New as Monster?
Henrik Lübker
Crafting a More Creative and Caring World at the Intersection of Technology, Design, Art, and Nature
New technology and change always come as a double-edged sword offering both displacements of the normal and the possibility of the tomorrow. But in a historical perspective – in our history books, in our museums, in the way we make history into a linear string of progress – we rarely see both sides.
For example: Thinking back on the development of the tractor, I see a story of progress and better living conditions.
But John Steinbeck saw the other side of the coin. In his diary, he wrote:
“Today’s work is the overtone of the tractors, the men who run them, the men they displace, the sound of them, the smell of them. I’ve got to get this over. Got to because this one’s tone is very important— this is the eviction sound and the tonal reason for movement. Must do it well.”
And this is how he lyrically described it in the Grapes of Wrath:
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“The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses.”
The new as monsters.
Now, Matias Seidler’s and my positive take on AI’s potential in the cultural sector is doing the rounds – this time in MuseumNext.
Are we one-eyed optimists?
Definitely!
But we are so because we see precisely that AI can be a tool for the cultural sector to show both sides of the coin: Including different voices and perspectives of our cultural heritage.?Read more in our MuseumNext article:
Khora Partner | Research and Innovation | partnerships & business development | emerging & immersive tech
2 年GPT spent tremendously long on the below. Steinbeck's original musings on motorization are more vivid, but here you go, a shortened version of my first prompt: Shorten that and make use of the words: tractors, fields, insects, droning roar, monsters Here is a shorter poem in the style of John Steinbeck, about the motorization of agriculture: Tractors, monsters of the fields, Their droning roar, a wondrous yield, With diesel engines, loud and proud, Work is done, with ease allowed. Insects hum, in fields of green, The future of farming, now is seen, With tractors doing all the toil, The farmer's life, a smoother boil. So let us raise a glass today, To these machines, that make our way, In fields of plenty, fields of peace, The motorization of agriculture, a blissful release.
Crafting a More Creative and Caring World at the Intersection of Technology, Design, Art, and Nature
2 年https://www.museumnext.com/article/museums-as-hyperinstitutions/