Kraftwerk Kulturzentrum
I am consistently impressed by the quality of Bruce Sterling's thought. His recent Wired piece, Dispatches From the Hyperlocal Future, is no exception. It's a fictional set of blog posts from 2017 made by a hyperconnected Cory Doctorow stand-in who specializes in the applications of computing power embedded in everyday objects and ubiquitous network connectivity. He calls this "hyperlocal" - hyper as in linked and local as in wherever you happen to be right now.
Every paragraph actually touches on a distinct ground-shaking implication of the ultra-connected computational wonderland we're heading for, almost too many to keep track of, which is sort of appropriate. One theme popped out at me in particular, an enhanced ability to discover the complex set of interactions that produce a social phenomenon. In Sterling's piece it's a torrent of real estate speculation in Dubai that his main character is hired to analyze and understand. What he uncovers is the convergence of a loophole in a treaty to unify Taiwan with China that allowed wealthy Taiwanese to hide their assets in the houses they own and the legal attributes unique to Dubai.
This is the same effect the Internet had, with its distributed architecture and resources rendered networked applications effectively transparent, exposing the guts of the machine to whoever wanted to dig around in them. In the "hyperlocal" world Sterling describes, the flows of people and capital will be similarly transparent and exposed to those who wish to look. What a contrast to the mysterious ways of our world as they have been, accessible only to those "masters of the universe" with skills and wealth and connections.
Also, who can resist the idea of the "Kraftwerk Kulturzentrum," a "vast, perpetual, swirling technorave ... [an] homage to the 20th century's supremely influential band"
2 comments:
I noticed Bruce's piece on Wired, but haven't got around to reading it yet. The thing that caught my attention on your post was the title - "Kraftwerk...". I had to read to determine if it was in reference to the German band. I listened to them just yesterday on the iPod.
In reference to the post, we are heading in some fantastic directions and other authors that have explored such possible futures are William Gibson, Neal Stephenson from a sci-fi perspective and if you wish to get a little more technical, I would recommend "Engines of Creation"(1986), by Eric Drexler. considered by some as the father of nano-tech.
I first heard Kraftwerk at a friend of my dad's when I was quite young, 12 or 13 I guess. He worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on the radio, doing an overnight show that played the most eclectic and weird stuff around. The song I heard first was "Storeroom Dummies" which I found hysterically funny/terrifying. I remember hearing Autobahn that night too. Sterling's right though, this is their century. I can't think of a pop band that is more relevant to the world of iPods, mobiles, RFIDs, GPS, etc.
I loved Engines of Creation when I read it in college. The whole notion of nano robots doing checksums on your DNA strands, holding back the ravages of time seemed like a perfect technology-driven version of an afterlife.
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