millsworks

Bruce Sterling tweeted the link to this philosphical “documentary” essay – an exploration of identity in the digital age, the absorption of self within technology and the expression of being within an ethereal existence.

At least that’s the way I was reading it.

The folks at KS12 describe it thusly:

The digital settles in as background. We remember less and query more. Our identity play would be considered schizophrenic in the last century. We have more friends than ever before yet know new frontiers of isolation. The quantification of our experience haunts us in the form of a persistent history. And we are distracted more than we ever knew possible. These circumstances are paradoxically a description of the near future and a diagnosis of the current state of affairs. The truly timeless is redefined – it has transcended that which is classic; it has become that which is never finished.

On one level there’s a lot of playful bafflegab going on (hell, just read their About page for an example) but when the comments and ideas start layering upon themselves in your mind (or at least in my alleged mind) it takes on the construct of a larger perception of how we are mutating ourselves in this data soup we call the world today.

I think this fits neatly with some of my previous posts on Augmented Reality and Howard Rheingold‘s talk on the History Of Public Sphere.

We may not (yet) be in that place described by Stewart Brand in the first publication of the Whole Earth Catalog when he said: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” but we are evolving ourselves with our technology and if we continue to do so with a modicum of wisdom and courage to change there may be hope for we silly monkeys.

As the introduction to Whole Earth continued:

So far, remotely done power and glory – as via government, big business, formal education, church – has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing – power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.

That was in 1968.

We are only now becoming aware as a larger community of what this means as the changes we have been investing our bodies and minds in start to take hold and change the world the world around us.

Are you ready to change? You should be because you already are in the process of self-evolvement. The big question is: how aware and self-directed will your personal evolution be? And how will you share that with the world at large?

Know thyself.

And get me a beer while you’re at it.

Cheers.

P. S. Speaking of monkeys – here’s a little Elvis for ya: