The explosion of energy coming from digital designers, musicians, filmmakers, photographers, and even advertisers is altering our basic notions of creativity. A new dream of the future is being born. Of course, in a half-century or so, these same digital revolutionaries will form the nostalgic material of somebody else’s “history.” Imagine the writer of that book – or CD-ROM or digital bedside laptop tablet – longing for the time when clunky computers sprouted wires, modems hissed, and chips held finite memory. Think how much wonder our time might hold.
Predictor: Katz, Jon
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, media critic Jon Katz reacts to his reading of computer scientist David Gelernter’s book ‘1939: The Lost World of the Fair.’ Katz writes: ”David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University, takes on both subjects in an evocative book and in the process speaks directly to new media. In ‘1939: The Lost World of the Fair,’ he uses one of the last great visionary exhibitions of the century – the New York World’s Fair on the brink of World War II – to raise a number of questions about our modern lives … Gelernter’s book arrives amid extraordinary controversy surrounding the entity loosely known as the Internet. ‘An Internet backlash is in full swing,’ New York magazine announced this spring. The idea sweeping much of the mainstream media is that the explosion of digital information is de-civilizing. That it is dangerous as well as desensitizing, that what preceded it was more meaningful, more human. His message may be less angry and reactionary, but Gelernter’s haunted revision of history only adds to the sense of doom. If faith stems only from promise and not achievement, if utopia comes only from expectation, not realization, if wonder is lost when dreams come true, as 1939 soberly suggests, we are in for a barren time. Yet opposite this bleak picture stands an irreconcilably different view of technology and change. It is a vision built by aging shut-ins fighting gallantly to gather on the Net; by teenagers publishing online zines; by poets and pitchmen firing up their respective Web pages. The explosion of energy coming from digital designers, musicians, filmmakers, photographers, and even advertisers is altering our basic notions of creativity. A new dream of the future is being born. Of course, in a half-century or so, these same digital revolutionaries will form the nostalgic material of somebody else’s ‘history.’ Imagine the writer of that book – or CD-ROM or digital bedside laptop tablet – longing for the time when clunky computers sprouted wires, modems hissed, and chips held finite memory. Think how much wonder our time might hold.”
Biography:Jon Katz was a 1990s technology columnist/journalist who wrote for Wired, Slashdot, HotWired and Rolling Stone. Part of his career was spent as a reporter and editor for the Boston Globe and Washington Post and as a producer for the CBS Morning News. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Lost World of the Future: Looking Back at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, David Gelernter’s ‘Novel with an Index’ Exposes the Irrevocable Link Between Technology and Nostalgia
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/gelernter_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney