User:ThomasW/Notes Imaginary Futures

Barbrook, Richard (2007) Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village Paperback , London , Pluto Press

Theat the IBM pavilion: ‘The Information Machine’. After taking their places in the 500-seat ‘People Wall’, visitors were elevated upwards into the egg-shaped structure. Once inside, a narrator introduced a 12 minute, 9-screen, 14-projector, slide- and-film performance with a stereophonic sound commentary provided in a choice of five languages. The theme of this ‘mind-blowing’ multi-media show was how computers solved problems in the same way as the human mind. Barbrook, 2007 page 63

The audience learnt that the System/360 mainframes exhibited in the IBM pavilion were in the process of acquiring consciorking at the cutting-edge of social theory: cybernetics without Wiener. Their fascination with Shannon’s analysis soon led them to the discovery of the writings of Harold Innis. According to this Canadian thinker, the ‘movement of information’ played the primary role in shaping human societies. From this premise, Innis explained the process of historical evolution. The invention of a new form of media had always led to the emergence of a new civilization" Barbrook, 2007 page 294

Playboy: Isn’t this prediction of an electronically induced world consciousness more mystical than technological?McLuhan: Yes … Mysticism is just tomorrow’s science dreamed today.’ Barbrook, 2007 page 306

Even the embarrassing failures of prophecy had been erased from the collective memory. Instead of re-examining their credibility, the key predictions of the 1964 New York World’s Fair were reworked many times to ensure that these old futures always looked like the latest thing. Barbrook, 2007 page 202