I've been considering the prospect of computing, and I think we could make it
a lot more interesting by creating computing spaces. In today's world, we're
constantly engulfed in a sea of technology. There is no separation from it,
and when you're using what you own, there is no separation between you and
your services, be they social networking, e-mail, online shopping, streaming,
etc. It is maddeningly difficult to create an isolated space in one's every
day technological environment. There are even tools being made and remade over
and over again to create "focus modes" to get work done, which often do work
but still have an air about them of a "false disconnect." Writers fall prey to
aquiring device after device, typewriter after typewriter, and notebook after
notebook to attain a perfect space for their writing. There are some successes
and some failures. When those successes do come, there is always a time limit
on how long it will be before a new environment is needed for a new, different
project. It's a perpetual problem; a drug.
This problem exists not only for writers but for everyone who has realized or
who owns the nagging feeling that they have been unable for quite a long time
to disconnect. Their phone buzzes once, sometimes ten times while they are
trying to read a chapter in a book. They take the bait, check the message,
watch a TikTok or two while they're at it, check their bank account and maybe
investment or retirement, and consider what they might have for lunch that
day -- the analogue book being left face down beside them, still not read,
still not begging to become so. Even if the phone is left face down, on Do Not
Disturb, ringer turned off, the user still feels it somehow buzz, like the
notification coming on the air waves hits their pockets first.
While this problem is often looked at from the analogue world's perspective,
not being able to read a book or sit down and watch a movie, for example,
while being able to scroll and watch several dozen TikToks, the drawbacks to
the digital world are often completely overlooked. Computing is erased as
itself an activity. The computer itself is hardly even a black box so much as
it is an extension of the human consciousness. The Web becomes an infinite,
vast ocean where waves to surf are rare and hard to come by. Nodes, servers,
and protocols are forgotten and merged in the consciousness. In terms of the
computer, there is hardly and rarely *self*. While this is a technological and
societal achievement by all means, it does mean that the tangibility of a
given computer or network or node is all but lost and dull.
Imagine the first time you ever used a computer with a graphical operating
system, be it when you were a child or when you were an adult. Imagine when
you explored the filesystem, the settings, the context menus, the flexibility
of the interface. Remember when you learned something new about it that you
hadn't managed to figure out on your own just by poking around -- something
hidden, yet potentially obvious.
Imagine then the first time you ever used the internet, connected to another
machine or even directly to an Internet Service Provider, depending on your
age. Remember the vast land of exploration you found yourself in, each site a
new adventure, each hyperlink or reference another potential world to uncover.
Remember the media that impacted you and made you feel connected to the very
feeling of you.
Remember the machine that got you there.
This is the heart and soul of computing.
If only there were more spaces out there that were uniquely constructed enough
to recreate this feeling -- a terminal in the park, a control room in a
library, a computerized puzzle in an abandoned phonebooth; I think this would
create the experience that computer-lovers crave and which others forget
exists. Computer museums and computer playgrounds, networks discoverable in
the underground, nodes seemingly forgotten. This is an ode that computers
deserve and that we so desperately need. It's a realization of self amidst an
endless consciousness. It's humanity.
---
I've been writing at night for the past few nights in a row now, so I suppose
this is some sort of unconscious challenge I've set for myself lol. I didn't
really expect this small thought to turn into a whole entire essay, but hey if
you made it this far I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to send me an e-mail,
comment, or toot :) Also you might be interested in finding one of my old
phlogs where I wrote about "Creative Computing," which carries a similar
message to this.
Also I think this is pretty much the first essay I've written since graduating
college, lol, if you could consider it one. It totally came out of nowhere,
but I do hope it gets some really awesome people out there thinking about
making computing come to life in new ways and maybe even suggesting really
cool projects hardly anyone's heard about before or might have been buried by
time but are still interesting.
Anyway, that's all for now! I gotta get to bed.
~jebug29 :>
