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Over the course
of an hour, Nicholas
Negroponte provides a flood of examples of the fantastic uses
for the latest and future technological innovations born at the
MIT Media Lab.
Negroponte is on a whirlwind tour of Sweden, and we caught up with
him speaking to a large audience in Örebro.
He is the IT visionary personified, with the mission of thinking
through the future uses of these wonderful new technologies. But
he points out that he's no futurologist. He is more likely to condemn
the way his institution's accomplishments have been used, for the
simple reason, he claims, that it is impossible for anyone to imagine
the full scope of what the development of IT will mean for the
world of the future.
In his capacity
as one of the initiated few with a truly historical perspective
on the developments in this new field, Negroponte knows what he
is talking about. He helped establish the field through the Media
Lab and Wired
magazine, although in this context 'historical perspective'
means about three measly decades.
The international
mass media loves to publish figures on the number of IT users or
people in the world with Internet access. Negroponte does his own
calculations and the results are as you might expect. He claims,
for example, that 300
people in an African village are hooked to the Internet despite
the fact they share one computer and one connection-something which
is characteristic of his thoroughly rosy perspective.
Negroponte's
mass media image makes him seem like he's full of empty rhetoric,
which is the impression you'd get if you read his book Being Digital
critically, for example.1 In real life, however, he gives a different
impression. He is a man with a social conscience and behaves like
the captain of the giant IT ship which is ferrying goodwill and
understanding between continents and individuals. He is a conquistador
with benevolent goals, and he cannot imagine a scenario other than
one where the Internet helps make the world a better place.
It's precisely
this perennial optimism and faith in progress that paradoxically
risks making the IT world seem quite one-dimensional for Negroponte's
audiences and readers. Being Digital, published in 40 languages-with
varied success-has rightfully been criticized for being a far-too-positive
presentation of the benefits of the qualities and developments of
the digital age. Negroponte's mode of argumentation is quite impressive
and, in some cases, convincing, but he leaves big gaps when it comes
to questions concerning information and generational divides, the
economic and social aspects of these developments, and the issue
of globalization versus marginalization. In later editions, Negroponte
has added an epilogue which one can, if sympathetic, interpret as
an attempt to respond to these criticisms. When asked how he feels
about the flip side of the rapid and all-encompassing development
of IT, he shrugs it off with a friendly laugh. He makes it clear
that if he has ever said anything about "the
dark side", then it was a mistake.
The answer,
in all its meagerness, is telling of Negroponte's attitude in general.
He claims, for example, that he has never heard of the Spanish sociologist
Manuel Castells's much-discussed work Information Age and he absolutely
will not discuss any negative consequences of the Internet.2 He
is simply not interested in the question, and instead maintains
that he's an incurable optimist. End of discussion.
When asked about
his views on the role and the development of art within the new
technologies, he is notably more forthcoming and possibly relieved
to be back on his home turf. He believes that there has traditionally
been a closer connection between
technological developments and music than between technology
and art-and that much of the technology which has been applied to
or presented as art has
compromised the quality of the art. But he points out that a
change and an improvement are definitely under way in the intersection
of art and technology.
At this point,
Negroponte announces the news that the Media Lab has just decided
to increase its range by creating a division specifically for art.
Art
will have its own focus in the MIT world and it will receive
the attention it deserves from a team of researchers, technicians
and artists. This news is so hot off the press that it's hard to
say exactly what form this development will take. MIT's website,
however, is a good source of information about everything connected
to its new areas of research.
Questions about
the abandonment of the Media Lab project in Sweden a few years
ago are apparently still somewhat painful for Negroponte. He feels
it was deeply disappointing that the plans fell apart at the last
minute. The Media Lab originally meant for Stockholm is now in Dublin.
He avoids clarifying the precise reasons behind the failure, but
returns to his usual carefree mode after negotiating this rough
spot.
Negroponte feels
that the great potential for the future development of IT, and new
technologies in general, rests with the children of today. Not just
that the new generation will simply take over but that children's
creative and undogmatic way of thinking and discovering new things
will be of crucial importance for future research. He feels that
play is a mode of discovery comparable to empirical, scientific
methods and the very ground for the creativity that will necessarily
drive technological development forward. "I wish I could be five
years old today," says this middle-aged man and he sounds like he
means it.
Given Negroponte's
interest in the way children navigate through life, one of the things
MIT has done is to set up summer camps for children from all over
the world. Negroponte says he gets goosebumps when he sees children
interacting with computers and the Internet, not to mention
the exchange of thoughts and ideas between children from different
countries and cultures. And this of course feeds his belief in the
ability of children to make the world a better place-preferably
with the help of wide bandwidths. We can only hope he'll be right.
During the public
lecture at Örebro, Negroponte manages to envision everything, from
small computers you would swallow with your morning juice for an
exact diagnosis in times of fluctuating health to the transfer of
technical information between people during a handshake. After the
storm of applause, this "eternal child" returns to the United States
to continue to live and work according to his principle that nothing
is impossible.
1 Nicholas Negroponte,
Being Digital, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995). Translated into
Swedish by Gösta Sturmark as Leva Digitalt (Stockholm: Albert
Bonniers Förlag, 1995).
2 Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture,
3 vols., (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996-1998). Translated
into Swedish by Gunnar Sandin as Informationsåldern. Ekonomi,
samhälle och kultur, Band I, II, III, (Gothenburg: Bokförlaget
Daidalos AB, 1998).
Translation by Sina Najafi and Nina Katchadourian
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