The Invisible Jail.

"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement"

This statement, often contributed to William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, summarizes the way of 19th century scientist thought better than anything else. Nothing more to discover. Nothing more to invent. The Golden Era of Humankind is ’now’.

Lord Kelvin was one of the brightest minds of his time, renowned physicist, brilliant engineer and overall scientific prodigy, yet he (if he truly said aforementioned statement) was proven wrong by the XX century. Aqualung. Heavier-than-air aircraft (another impossible thing, as Lord Kelvin actually said in 1895). Penicillin. X-ray. Mass production of internal combustion engines. Wireless telegraphy. Nuclear energetics. Space travel. Deep diving. Computers. Humankind never strode the way it did during XX century.

But out of all great inventions and discoveries of the past century I personally consider The Web to be the greatest. In my humble opinion, Internet is not just the greatest invention of XX century – it is the greatest invention of our era. Automated global bank of all (well, almost all) knowledge, easily accessible, free for everyone to explore. All the knowledge in the world is at your hand. No more borders. No more boundaries. Just pure freedom of thought.

And the best jail ever.  Everything your move is remembered. Every your search is noted. You are free, yet you are under surveillance. There is one camera for every 32 people in UK (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-watching-surveillance), and every camera is connected to The Web – directly or through proxy connections. You are watched, every day, and your every step recorded, accessible for everyone powerful enough; number of cameras grows every day, new automatic control systems are put into operation. 

Think of Orwell, but with no Ministry of Love to be afraid of – instead, you don’t know what to be afraid of. All you know is that you’re defenseless, and be the need of someone to mean you harm, even slightest provocation (and, sometimes, even no provocation at all | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/ williams/ williams020499.htm) would result in your downfall. Bit by bit, our every liberty is put at test, our every act of free will is controlled. If you can’t cope with inequity, and you can act, and you act, you’re declared a villain, you’re hunted, you’re persecuted (Three words: Assange, Manning, Snowden).

And the most brilliant part of this great deception – even with all the knowledge at your hand, you’ll never know the truth. It is buried deep under the lies, deceptions, kitten videos and pornography; you’ll never know the truth, you’ll never know right from wrong, even if you look straight at it. Everything is done for your good, every cease of your rights, every harsh move of every government is for your own good; and even if it’s not, you’ll never know; and even if you know, you’re powerless. In chess, such situation is called “zugzwang” – every move worsens your position; and the only winning move is not to play. 

Cybertechnologies: from unmanned killing machines to ‘posthuman’ and back

"No more gods, no more faith, no more timid holding back. Let us blast out of our old forms, our ignorance, our weakness, and our mortality. The future belongs to posthumanity." — Max More, On becoming posthuman.

There are two notable trends the humanity is expected to follow in the future. The first way is to transform human nature by technological means enhancing human’s intellectual, physical, and psychological abilities – so-called Transhunanism movement. We can meet both camps, which keep positive view of the recently emerged ideology. There are such futurologists, scientists, and activists like Max More or the founders of non-profit international organization World Transhumanist Association Nick Bostrom and David Pearce.

You can find a report below [http://transhumanism.org/resources/survey2005.pdf] that reflects basic assumptions and beliefs of Transhumanist movement – for instance, they actively call public to stake the future of the humanity on science and modification of human being’s abilities by all means.

Slightly opposite view is supported by the highly respected politologist Francis Fukuyama who thinks that transhumanism is “nothing more than science fiction taken too seriously.”

[See more at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2004/09/01/spreading_democracy #sthash.9nVrWILJ.dpuf]

The second general trend, which is perceived more neutral without wide public debates, is creating artificial intelligence, i.e. robots, cyborgs, unmanned machines. One of the activists who projects and predicts global robotization is MIT professor Rodney Brooks. He belongs to the group of scientists who produce robots for peaceful aims:  welding, riveting, delivering interoffice mail. But the paramount goal for these people is to build an cyberorganism which can learn on his own, by trial and error – as humans do. Moreover, Mr. Brooks denies any treats, (loosing jobs, anti-human actions of robots) which can be brought by large-scale introduction of robotic technologies in our everyday life.

At the very same time, not long ago we were demonstrated what are unmanned killing machines capable of under control of human. Launching Drones by the USA into warfare in Pakistan has led to up to 3000 unnecessary casualties among civilians in 2013. Drones are operated from land-on centers from distant areas which provides guaranteed protection to pilots. Thus, we can see that robots are controlled and operated by humans and their contribution is still defined by dominating human creatures and it will be long time before the dream of Rodney Brooks comes true.

It is up to humanity to choose what is the right thing to rely upon. Science hasn't said its word yet. And I tend to believe that the brightest minds of humankind wouldn't be stopped by imaginary ethics of the world where the most people live in poverty, kill each other for profit, and believe in fake celestial creatures.

Computer games industry: let there be more Art.

The generation of 90's will be the last one, which remember such state-of-the-art games (with their unlinear story lines, interactiveness, forethought script, potential soundtracks) as Fahrenheit or Half-Life games line, for instance. This is what I call Art – with a capitalized 'A' in the beggining. These games were worth spending your time on them, because in the end you were always awarded with culture shock and you got to the finish titles with admiration and astonished. Totally different story happened to such computer world monsters like Hitman, Max Payne, or Grand Theft Auto. The emerging consumeristic ideology of both developers and gamers has changed the destiny of these outstanding projects. 

Launching of COD: Black Ops 2 brought the developers up to $500 million in first 24 hours after the release. Another, time-consuming shooter came out so you could kill 40 hours of you life running forward all the time and performing 'headshots', then put the disc-box on the shelf and forget about it for the rest of your life. All you need to do is keep concentrated and pull the trigger when you see something in your back-sight. Not too bright, folks. Maybe we can play something more smart and aesthetic. Does not computer industry belong to Art anymore? Moreover, there is one more playful fact that says, if the developers donate the daily revenue from one COD game to Africa and cease starvation issue on the whole continent for a decade.  

The queue from a distance for CoD: Modern Warfare 3

According  NPD Group – global market research company – the computer and game industry make $10.5 billion income in 2009. Concept of game industry has changed since 2000's. Partly, commercialization in one of the reasons why computer games industry ware put on conveyer and lost some of its features.

It's getting harder to find DIY followers among game developers. Due to large-scale commercialization a number of relatively sustainable games developing companies has emerged over the last 20 years.  

Entertainment Software Rating Board statistics: http://www.esrb.org/about/images/vidGames04.png

 

RELATIONS OF ART AND INTERNET

The groundbreaking developing of the means of communications during the last decades of the twentieth century gave huge opportunities for artists to fulfill their ideas in different kinds of art. Artists also took part in designing Web pages so another part of them could exchange distribute their pieces of work. To dive deeply and see how Art combined with computer technologies in dissoluble union and how they go hand in hand till nowadays you can read an article [http://www.nydigitalsalon.org/10/essay.php?essay=6] of Jon Ippolito – American new media scholar and artist.

It's important to note that Internet Art includes any object of Art that was digitalized and distributed through Internet. This phenomenon took its roots in avant-garde, dadaism, concept art movement and performance. 

Andy Warhol

GIVING AN OPPORTUNITY

Internet in the aggregate with modern productive computer technologies proclaimed the state of ‘somewhere-about-the-equality’ in art producing facilities and distributing opportunities for all wishful to take a shot!

Do It Yourself  (DIY) – Revolution! An invention of numerous tools and different kinds of software lies behind this (DIY) idea. Now you don’t need to shake down hi-tech recording technics – just install the app. Even if you are a bit doubtful about your genius musical project and grudge (or just simply don’t have) money to purchase Apple Store application, you can jailbreak it easily and get a professional recording studio in your laptop not spending a penny. As soon as your masterpiece is finished you need to PR it.

Advertise It Yourself (ADY) – Revolution! A fortuneless musician from Rowanda can’t just take a plane to New York, make a deal with an art gallery and expose his drawing. But he has access to online art galleries, where he will meet like-minded people, present his painting to a public eye. Youtube, social networks – everything is on your side if you want to share a bit of Art.