Technicum Artis Magistra

Since I have to return it to the our public library tomorrow I finally finished reading "What Technology Wants" by Kevin Kelly. A book that starts out as promising as this one, putting the door ajar to a novel outlook on the way things are, the end almost had to disappoint. It does not explain what technology wants. It is filled with a smorgasbord of interesting tidbits, and does contains a very interesting thesis that the whole of technology, for which he coins the term "the technicum", is simply the next logical step in the evolution of things that started with the big bang. A lot of brilliant minds were consulted and that shows, it is a very interesting read. And when you name Brian Eno in your acknowledgements, the man whose work first showed me that video can be Art, you cannot really go wrong, can you?

The show where I saw that greatly inspiring work by Mr. Eno was "The Luminous Image" in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. I saw it as a wee lad in 1984 (yeah, right). Here is a very low quality video of him talking about the piece I saw back then:

 

 

I still have the catalog.