Shepherd's Pie

To Be 19 and Linked To the Forever Telescoping Future

Get out the spotlights cause I am about to scream and yell........ "I'VE BEEN BLOGGED!" I was not just blogged! I was blogged by Bruce Sterling!

After reading this post about "Cyber Academia," seeing documents like Art In The Age of Mechanical Mechanical Reproduction" next to the work of Jaron Lanier and WorldChanging's Leapfrog 101. Throw in the SCUM manifesto and some Oscar Wilde and tons of others and it makes an inviting party.

While not an literal student of that syllabus. I like to read those documents when I feel like the present is a modern mess. The industrial revolution and the great wars of the past century have created a world that is inconsistant with the actual desires and needs of our individual bodies, and our human communities. I like to find the pockets of conceptual optimism where technology and objects are redesigned to appeal to our greatest human instincts. I want to be part of that. I genuinly sense this world is slowly being smashed and rebuilt. I wanted to see if I could actually reach out and touch a pocket of optimism

I was touched back...

The often quoted (on this site in particular) writer Bruce Sterling had this to say on his blog...

"Thursday, 3 February 2005

Nineteen Year Olds of the World, Unite
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: with a topheavy demographic structure like today's, you better get with it
From: Jake S.
Subject: Ahh, To be 19 and immersed in that...
Date: February 2, 2005 7:28:18 PM CST
To: bruces@well.com

"I turned 19 years old yesterday and I felt reading
that post was an occasion to contact the individual
who has given me some very serious inspiration."

Here is Jake's site:
http://01267.blogspot.com/
The Remarkably Interesting Blog of Jake "


I first discovered Bruce's work by simultantiously getting a Wired subscribtion anda saw links to his "Shaping Things To Come talk. I wouldn't try to explain Sterling's outlook on design and the future, except to say that I simply agree with him. It is more like I am voting for his candidacy for Futurist For Tomorrow. Our objects and the ways we create them are simply changing....


"Having conquered the world made of bits, you need to reform the world made of atoms. Not the simulated image on the screen, but corporeal, physical reality. Not meshes and splines, but big hefty skull-crackingly solid things that you can pick up and throw. That's the world that needs conquering. Because that world can't manage on its own. It is not sustainable, it has no future, and it needs one."
-Bruce Sterling



-JAKE

posted by JRS @ 8:24 AM