Indeed, I believe the greatest social change that I have witnessed over the 30 odd years that I was actively involved in research and teaching aspects of computer/art (in the Netherlands) involved the systematic destruction of knowledge and the "thinking" process.

Back in the 1960/70's computers were huge expensive (and rather dimwitted) "monsters" that could only be accessed via institutions involved in the active development of (specialised) knowledge. In this context, the computer was a research tool -and so was explicitly documented in ways that would allow the researcher to exploit the maximum potential of their expensive investment. Similarly, the "researcher" also needed to conceptualise their research (and their expensive presence) within the context of the institution they were working in.

However, the situation changed rapidly with the rise of the PC (originally a generic term for a personal computing device -before the term became a commercially encapsulated reference to a specific brand of architecture). The consumerisation of the computer meant that the fruit of many years of slow and painful research by (institutionalised) individuals was bundled and commercially marketed as part of a "miracle machine" that could turn every isolated individual into a master of the universe.

The point that was carefully overlooked in all this was the difference between "performance" and "competence" -i.e. a parrot can repeat English phrases but it does not understand the English language. Similarly, an 'artist" using an electronic "paint by numbers" system may be producing an image but does not understand the artistic process of investigation. By focuussing on the end product and not the process that produced the product -the public were being sold creative dead ends disguised as creative strategies.

With the rise of the internet -the previous (democratic) "loss of knowledge" was propagated globally by the new "experts" as the latest wisdom. It is frightening to see the way the ancient and forgotten (pre-PC) knowledge was successfully implemented (as effective tools for social engineering) while the total irrelevance of these same conceptual tools were being promoted by a whole new industry of global web-based pundits: All busy synchronising (via on and off-line global conferencing) the promotion of the uselessness and undesirability of any form of systematic enquiry or understanding that might actually reveal the true nature of what was really happening on a global scale.

Trevor Batten
www.tebatt.net
November 18, 2007