Booked on the weekend (day 233)

I finished the book "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".  It was a quick and entertaining read.  I'm curious about how well it works as a movie.  It's the first of a trilogy but I'm not sure when I'll be able to convince myself to take a full day to read again.

The other book that I finished a while ago and forgot to mention is "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster.  Jaron Lanier recommended it during his talk at SXSW.  The book was written in 1909 so is in the public domain.  It's set in a futuristic world where humans are living underground, each in separate apartments fully managed by the Machine, which has become something like a God to them.  Birth and Death are managed and travel is not desirable.  "Ideas" are the most valuable currency (if you read the book you'll understand why I put ideas in quotes). The short story is about the gradual decline of the machine as the inhabitants gradually become ignorant and complacent about its maintenance.  An amazing tale even if it was written today.  The fact that it was written in 1909 is almost unbelievable.

I was a panelist at the Diane Farris Gallery on Saturday.  Hank Bull was a fellow panelist and Lili Vieira de Carvalho was moderating.  The topic was social media and art.  It was interesting to hear Hank talk about the beginning of network art in the 1970s when artists were using the telephone, the photocopier, and the precursors to the fax machine and video phone.  He said something that stuck with me: when it became clear that artists would be able to link to each other in a great network around the world, the belief and hope was that there would be large collaborative works, no longer individual works.   I'm very much paraphrasing from memory and I wish I remembered his exact words.  He also said it's worth noting that it's called social media, not socialist media.  This is after some discussion about the role of corporate interests in web 2.0.   It was interesting to me that the optimism of the early 70's has been partially realized in the sense that the technology is more available than ever but there has also been the disappointment of losing control of the medium.  Overall, a pretty good panel.   It probably would have been more balanced if Kris Krug had been able to be the third panelist.  We needed a convert I think. 

A song for this post.