It was cold and dreary Sunday last week and I had absolutely nothing to do! In earlier Dublin tainted times, I might have simply stayed in and back-stabbed the weather cursing the bitter cold; however, now in Barcelona I welcomed the change in atmospheric architecture and decided to rough it into town for a spot of culture. Grabbing a pocket umbrella I picked up at the local €2 shop, I donned my Woolen cardigan, threw on a pair of aging Adidas turtle toes and headed down to the ‘Santa Monica Art Gallery‘ in Barcelona, where they had an interesting exhibition called ‘Cultures of Change , Social Atoms and Electronic Lives’.
As taken from the Santa Monica Arts website: “It takes an in-depth look at social and cultural dynamics from a multidisciplinary set of perspectives that range from the sciences of complexity to digital technologies. This exhibition project in the form of an installation presents an international selection of works of warm technology that breathe with human breath, some from academic institutions and research centres, some created by artists with extensive experience in this field.”
“The exhibition marks with the celebration of the International Congress on Changing Cultures | Cultures of Change in Barcelona, funded by the European Commission (www.atacd.net), in which sociologists, philosophers, mathematicians, biologists, physicists, technologists and artists will air and share their views on cultural dynamics in the contemporary world.”
The interactive project includes a series of workshops and a variety of activities related to the works on display. I especially loved the colourful flashing box robots (left) that detect human energy signatures, sound, and movement–very technologically cute!
While roaming the corridors, I was given an interesting insight into the wonders of social media and how this technology has become such an integral part of our lives… Have you ever wondered how many people: surf the internet, write sensational blogs such as this one (sic), send emails per day, and how many of those are spam? The answers: 1.73 Billion, 126 million, 247 Billion, 200 billion (81% of emails are spam).
Here’s an interesting video by Jezz3 to illustrate the point. It was created for a lecture at Stevenson University for AIGA Baltimore in Feb 2010. This fascinating video tells you all you ever wanted to know about Internet statistics… Take a seat and prepare to be boggled!
Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Blogs etc) are certainly pervading every aspect of our lives in more ways than we realise…
By Cedric Jean
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