3:Invisible Essentials

the essential is no longer visible

But, as Paul Virilio reminds us, the essential is no longer visible and while the containers are physically everywhere, for computers, it is inside where the money goes, quite the anthesis of museums.

So, given this cultural and technological precipice that we find ourselves at, I wanted to deploy the metaphor of the container or frame, particularly in relation to natural history museums and our cultural representations of nature. Frames and containers are interesting because they stand for understanding, power, and control and by examining the frame, we should get a greater understanding of what it is trying to contain.

I'm going to do a highly subjective "histori-o-graphical" tour and then come back to look at how new technologies might play a better role in unravelling this confusion. Because if, as I have said, we are increasingly spending our lives "within software", I would argue that software needs to be considerably more sublime, not only in what it does, but also in the act of programming itself.

 

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