At one time people were talked about as users. Users of you know the Internet, users of radio and it changed from user to consumer. And actually a lot of book publishers talk about consumers and not readers of books now. So this is what's - this was really the beginning of the idea of advertising on the Net. Now when you go up into the Web, you very rarely can see the text that you want to see, or the image you want to see without all the banners. There's banners going around every which way. So there really has been a privatisation of the Net to a large extent through the corporations.
All of whom just are predatory capitalists. They're in cyberspace to make a quick buck.
But Steve Mann is fighting back. With his miniature camera wired into his glasses, he's online all the time.
Many people have said they're concerns about privacy with respect to this machinery. And I feel though on the other hand it's quite an alternative to this sort of, Orwellian surveillance that we often see and watch. There's cameras everywhere wired into one central authority that watches us all. Instead it's more like we're watching each other and we're connected together as a unit.
According to Mann, his technology could revolutionise the balance of power in the world. If we all went Cyborg it would be Big Brother himself who'd be under surveillance.
When you go to the department store shopping they have cameras pointing at you to record evidence if you might steal or shoplift. At the same time the ordinary citizens may have evidence to record if the shopkeepers are illegally chaining their fire exits shut or doing other activities, human rights' violations. So it may provide a balance and stabilising force in society.
Steve Mann is now spreading the word. Creating a connected community. A group of wired citizens of the future. Capable of sharing each other's viewpoints and combining their intelligence through technology.
At the moment what we wear is, well fairly shocking to the average citizen. So -
But once you get past those reactions, I mean really that's the biggest, the biggest drawback.
STUDENT
It's almost becoming, eventually I feel it becomes intuitive and it's
almost in your blood stream.
But as you can see with the equipment the Professor's wearing today, it's virtually invisible on him and can only get better.
It IS the future. It has to be.
But technology might have one more track to play. In the future Steve Mann's battle might not be with Big Brother. But with the machines themselves.
Communications are critical in terms of power and control. With humans we can see that quite clearly. Those that can communicate effectively and efficiently and those that have the power. We look to the future and machines, technology takes on much more importance. Then communication has no lesser role to play, it's just as important, perhaps even more so. And that's something we have to remember. It's not just a single machine we're looking at. It's a machine that's communicating linked to others. But communication is certainly power.
Throughout the twentieth century we've been shown a future of robots. Battles with thinking machines. But for once, science fiction has got it wrong. Engineers like Kevin Warwick are convinced that we are on the threshold of machine intelligence. But intelligent machines won't be walking dustbins. They'll be software brains, linked through the network. And the more we link with cyberspace, the more we're meeting the machines on THEIR terms.
What we've created over the last century is a really technological world. We've already got to the stage where we can't turn off networks. And as machines are given more power, more intelligence, it could be them that decide to take control. We have to realise this. But in doing so we can turn it to our benefit. We can make positives out of the situation and gain. We can stay in control of the machinery.
Are you sure?
No!
NARRATOR
Increasingly decisions will be made by machines. Communicating with other
machines and unless we link into their loop they could leave us out altogether.
But
get too close to machines and we get sucked in. Becoming technology ourselves.
It's like an additional sensory organ that I've had running for so long that it, it's - parts of the brain have developed around it and then suddenly when it's shut down it's like sort of riding blindfolded or with ear plugs in. You know? It's like removing some sensory capability that should be there or at least from my own perception should be there.
Steve Mann for all that I like him I would say that he's unreflective on the extent to which he has made his body an extension of the technology itself. And he - therefore his experiment on the technology is important not in terms of its technology. But in terms of what it says culturally. When human beings passively and actively, very actively and happily accept being an extension of the technology and shut down any critical consciousness of that.
Art is about the construction of contestable futures. Of multiple possibilities that can be experienced, evaluated, discarded, perhaps appropriated and perpetuated in some way. Performance is about actual interfaces, real experiences, taking the physical consequences for your ideas.
It's all very well talking about the future of humanity but what I have to do is decide what I'm going to do next. Perhaps all I can do is to be on guard, on guard for the kinds of faults and failures that can take place in technology. And be on guard against its misuse.
An artist like Stelarc makes us think about technology. And the way we might be linked to it in future. Food, clothes, music, even conversation are all technologies. But so much a natural part of our lives that we embrace them without thinking. We're sometimes absorbed so deeply that the boundaries between us and our technologies become unclear. But Stelarc forces us to ask whether in fact there are any boundaries to confront at all.
I think it becomes very difficult to tell the difference as to what is human and what is machine. Both physically and mentally.
If we're linking together as one which seems a natural way to go, we just have to get used to a different way of looking at things. A different lifestyle. That we're not only part human but also part machine.
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