Humanology

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

My mate Chris just made this.

Get more details from Neurosonics Audiomedical - the film features turntablist legends The Scratch Perverts and multi-mike beatbox genius Shlomo [as the drums].

Kingdom of the unreal but also a higher state of being, ultimately free of the limitations of the material world through the agency of science, technology, and imagination.

I may be biased but I still guarantee it is the *MOST AWESOME* thing you will see today.

[Possibly tomorrow also. Maybe even all week, but the internet is a big {metaphorical} place, and things move fast nowadays, speaking of which...]

People and technology are blurring in both directions.

You have the idea of cybernetic enhancement, the addition of technology to people, from invisible tools all the way to the cognitive amplification that Ray Kurzweil claims will be necessary just to keep up with the increased rate of technology wrought cultural change in a couple of decades time [see the upcoming Transcendent Man for more on his particular flavour post singularity thinking] [Thanks Stephanie for the tip]. 

And you have technology getting humanised, until it plunges into the uncanny valley, that scary place where robots get so close to peopleness they freak you out, until it emerges as something more Roomba-like, [because pet robots are much less scary than people robots.]

[I think the uncanny valley equally applies to any technology that mimics or attempts to mimic humanlike functions, which is why behavioural targeting can seem sinister if it's heavy handed, and also why that paperclip in MS Office was so annoying.]

I'm thinking a lot about 'technology' as an idea at the moment for some upcoming talks - if you come across any really awesome old technology / old technology prediction stuff on the youtube I'd love to see it - thanks.