On the convergence of art and technology

I really don't believe in these things-computers and stuff. I mean, I've done every digital video system with every kind of Macintosh and it's so buggy. And I wonder why. I can't fix it. I get all the updates-it doesn't work. It's all a lie. Things don't have to ship working anymore. They don't have to; it's optional. Therefore, I believe it's important to focus on what is important. So I have a sort of "What is important" presentation in ten points.

1. Imagining the unimaginable
I believe that expressing yourself through creating isn't about making a business or making clients happy. Inevitably, it's this notion of doing one thing-and that is to imagine the unimaginable, to see what people could never see usually. I believe this is the most important thing that is forgotten today because this is such a practical-minded world. Furthermore, this notion of creating objects is gone in a sense because it's very confusing today.

2. Drawing with the computer
And so drawing on the computer becomes a combination of drawing with my hand, and then I can draw on my computer, and people can debate on whether it's the same or different. In essence, it's the same thing, because you're looking at something and translating it. Now what is different is when you use three-dimensional graphics where you are looking at something and making the structure, making not just a picture of a cube but a real cube. In clay, etc. you're doing the same thing so "Is there a difference?" is always the question I'm trying to look at.

3. Physical form is messy
Now that's really different. You're making a virtual space of ideas, but again you say that that's virtual reality. So the biggest question is: is there anything that's inexpressible in physical form? And I think there isn't. Physical form is messy. It's sort of large. If I wanted to make a giant program, I could build a building that's ten times this size. It's the same thing. The difference is that the computer makes it compact; it's all smooshed into one space, and so we're given the illusion of simplicity at all times.

4. Tools as trees
We all know about tools. I always ask myself, what's PhotoShop 19 going to look like? It's hard to imagine because it can't evolve much further-it'll have a million layers or something. Also, there's this notion that Flash is the PhotoShop of the new Millennium. I bought Flash. It's so buggy. I don't understand. How can you sell something that's so buggy? One guy sent me e-mail saying, "I'm wondering, should I learn Java now? Because I'm a Flash guy." I don't really care about Java, but the bottom line is that you can't make Java in Flash, but you can make Flash in Java. So it does say something about the lower level. In essence, every tool is just a tree, a program-PhotoShop, whatever. It's a very complex tree; many, many branches are taken, therefore we're taught to think that we have a million features-so all you artists out there, go and create something brand new. But we're all walking on the same path, because when you look at it, most of the features given really aren't very useful. This tree is actually quite thin, I think. Everyone is running around and saying, "I'm going to find something!" The reality is that the thing we're looking for is out there, and you can't get there with existing tools.

5. "Gold in them there hills"
This is the notion that there's gold in the web. That's what tool companies want to tell you. There's gold out there! Go get it! It's an illusion; we all know that. People make money selling jeans and gold pans, but people who prospect make nothing. Money is so powerful today. If you ask MIT students, they'll all say they want to join a start-up. So I ask why.
"For the money."
"What are you going to do with the money?"
"I don't know. I'll retire."
"What do you do when you retire and have so much money?"
"I have no idea."

6. Teams
I think design or art has always been about heroes, superstars. You see them as he-men, those men and women that make you think, 'Oh my gosh, I want to go in that direction!' Today it's impossible because we have large companies. You can't design by yourself anymore. Young people have no way to aspire to greatness. How can a kid who's sixteen years old say, "Someday I'm going to crush Razorfish-the death star!" No. It's impossible because it's a big organization. The small person can no longer win anymore, and I think that the small, individual personality is further discounted today.

7. Computers as machines
We are taught to believe that a computer is some kind of elegant object. It's in a box; it's rather quiet. People can read their e-mail anywhere they want to. We're taught that it's a small object, but it's a tremendously complex object-to me, it's a hundred-mile by hundred-mile cubed object. You just can't see it. You're taught to think, "Oh, here's a window . . ." But actually it's a gateway to all of this information space, and it's no wonder that sitting in front of this little screen is such a stressful experience. There's this giant machine out there and we can't see it. It's made by people. People build cars and they can't do it right. I mean, come on. That's a small machine and it breaks down. Imagine a million car machine that you use every day. Of course you'll get hurt very badly.

We don't have control of machines anymore. Before, we had a system that prompted and blinked at us, and we'd type in something, and we'd hit return. Then it would say, "Syntax error." We'd get upset, but we'd have to figure out the problem. Today we have these dialogue boxes. It's always, "Yes? No? Cancel? Would you like to download your roaming profile?" I'm not sure. I'd have to think for a while. This stress damages our mind.

8. Human beings
I believe that the most important thing today is discovering humanism in technology. How do we raise people who are conscious of this need to create as human beings? How to go beyond these notions of business? How to go into this notion that being a human is a wonderful endeavor? This is impossible today because of academic politics.

9. Talking and doing
It's a very strange equation; I derived it in class. It turns out that talking is greater than doing today. If you talk, it's great. You can create by talking about something. And the people who do-their life isn't so great. This notion that we got into this business by making things isn't so important. "I don't make things anymore. I make businesses. I make organizations." I don't know about that. I mean, I like to make these little sketches. There's something joyous about making things that you can actually see and feel and feel that your family can actually relate to in some way.

I believe that we're on this trend where technology has completely outpaced culture. In fact, what we have today is even worse. Culture stays at the same rate. Technology tends to piggyback on the fact that it did something wrong, and therefore they have to make more technology to fix the problem. Now technology is slowing down culture significantly. The solution is actually very simple: take culture away from technology in some way, go in an orthogonal direction.

10. Making a difference
Finally, how can people help in this endeavor? There's a trend in academics where people say, "Well, we need money to buy our computers, so we'll go to companies and say, 'What kind of students do you want us to make?'" This is quite dangerous because it's very shortsighted. I believe in supporting design students who can do things ten years out, things that it might not be clear what's needed of them yet. I believe that the role of industry small and large is to help out the schools they know of. Force the schools to not just deliver ten variations of an e-whatever, but think about the new material. Think about what it can do, and base the studies around that-instead of based on some product or based on some results, as is so common today.

A Chinese medicine person told me this one time, "We've two bags. Food goes in. Food goes out." It's very simple. We're just human beings; we're just organisms. We crawl around the planet, make problems, etc. But we really want to focus on the technology. It's got to input-output, but it's a little different from us.