Through the Lens – Spazhouse’s look at the past and and its effect on us today.
In the Past Computers, Can’t live with them. Today, can’t living without them.
For movie fans the film “Desk Set” with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy is a marvel. The witty banter, the ease at which the costars connect. The premise is simple enough, a research department at a broadcasting company believes they will be replaced by a computer. It goes by the name, EMERAC. (Electromagnetic MEmory and Research Arithmetical Calculator). And to people think naming computers came about with the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Desk Set” is the start of the battle with our relationship with computers.
At a point in the film the creator of the film, Katherine Hepburn decides to destroy ERMERAC because of Tracy’s need to keep his creating alive. She floods the computer’s system with questions that over loads its capacity to answer. Tracy holds off as long as possible, not to give in to his addition over this computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiDgkGRCBq0
Fast forward through film history where humans battle computers. In our current life, we have become more like Spencer Tracy because we carry our computers around with us. We take them to bed. We now worship at the altar of computers. 59 years since the making of “Desk Set”our relationship with computers is no so different. An up coming film by Werner Herzog called “Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World”. From the enjoyable trailer, we see everyone is connected. Monks are tweeting, comments narrator Werner Herzog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc1tZ8JsZvg
Computers as tools are marvelous items. The escalating problem is our magpie minds. Articles, shiny objects and lists drag us away from important tasks we set out to do. Instead of mastering this marvelous tool, we are fighting every day to overcome our addiction over content. The our brains at war with computers is constant, the battle is what has changed.
“Stay curious,” Rox
Review of “Desk Set” can be found on Need Coffee Dot Com