Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
We then believe that there is a new cultural movement taking shape. This
movement is providing a “voice” through which anyone can express to everyone
whatever their imagination can create, democratizing innovation and creativity like
never before. At the core of this emerging cultural movement are digital technolo-
gies that enable the access to sophisticated tools for rich media content creation,
sharing of ideas, discussion, and distribution.
An example of such phenomenon is the Star Wars fan fi lm awards. Fans submit
entries to that contest, showcasing their ability and acknowledging their apprecia-
tion for the Star Wars saga. What used to be completely out of range technically and
economically for nonprofessionals, and would signify a massive and expensive
effort of a movie studio to produce, has now become possible for dedicated hobby-
ists to produce sophisticated computer animations.
That and many other examples of entertainment content is distributed, com-
mented on, shared, and reshared over social networks, shaping new ways of what
we do for leisure. Increasingly more people are turning off the television and tuning
to Facebook to watch what others are saying, commenting on, and following and
what is being linked on YouTube, Vimeo, and Blogs.
The more we express ourselves, the more we tend to sense ourselves. We believe
that new creative technologies are forming the ground for the next great cultural
movement giving voice to user's wishes to express inner feelings, ideas, and visions;
transforming; and giving shape to whatever imagination can generate. We believe
that the future of technology will be largely determined by end users who will
design, build, and share their own worlds, and creative technologies will inspire and
support this shaping process.
Not all roses. A recent documentary by David Dworsky, “PausePressPlay”
(
2011
), discusses how the digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed peo-
ple's creativity and talent, but at some point it questions the dark sides, asking if this
is not the end of our cultural industry. Seemingly apocalyptic it raises concerns for
our refl ection; Andrew Keen shot one of the fi rst rocks, with “The Cult of the
Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture” (
2007
), which was pursued
by Jaron Lanier with “You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto” (
2010
) and “Who
Owns The Future?” (
2013
) and then by Evgeny Morozov with “The Net Delusion:
The Dark Side of Internet Freedom” (
2012
) and “To Save Everything, Click Here:
Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don't Exist” (
2013
).
We understand that there are problems, as there are always with all transformations;
our goal here is not to cleanse and paint a one-colour landscape, but we simply
chose to focus our analyses on the creative production side, leaving outside the
reception transformation. We acknowledge that this will change culture as we know
it, raising new drawbacks; however, we cannot forget the new real possibilities all
these changes represent for human creativity and all the impact it can have in human
life.
In the next sections we will argue that while there have been incredible creative
individuals in our history, in fact many more may never have discovered their area
of intervention to express their creativity, maybe the technology to allow them to
shine never came across. We will look at the events in recent history and the
