Disruptive technology via open source creative practice.

With little competition ‘art’ has the power to shift and break
boundaries, change attitudes towards ideas and realign our
perception of the world. As we receive ourselves through our body
we consolidate feeling with experience and art has the power to
provoke and reflect both. Whether created through play or
meticulous planning and execution it has the ability to at once be
something new and nothing that has not been there before. The
cultural facts that we produce are reconfigurations of a past we do
not posses and the path to understanding a future not yet come.

How then to dot a line on an unwritten map. To understand the

implications of referring to a notion of future, we have to come to
terms with mythic ideas of past. Imagining a city so long lost that
any interaction with artifact would go completely unnoticed. We see
only the history we are able to comprehend and all else is
encumbered myth. Just like the discovery of the “Pyramid of the
Sun”i in Bosnia 5 years ago. It was found largely through the use of
Google earth. An ancient structure over 10 000 years old that
throws into question the recognized history of human development.
This pyramid has been hidden in view for centuries. A city lived in its
shadow thinking it to be a mountain. Present fictions lag behind the
reality of where we are in so many ways; ideas can be too big to
accept. (The pyramid remains unknown to most people and the
recognized narrative of human evolution as yet unchanged.)

From megalithic structures to microlithic tools; so little is known of

the vast period of time beyond our recent history and even this is a
myriad of holes and painted fictions. The idea of referring to truth is
an ambiguous field of perspectives. One truth is that any remains of
up to 50 000 years would not be easily distinguished or revealed
and yet mankind has been very much the same as a species since
then, yet with far greater diversity and in far less proliferation. The
idea that in the last 2000 years we have advanced so much and that
for the 50 000 prior developed hardly at all is a fiction too far.

Another myth “Global warming” is a more recent one. When

thinking of the plight our planet and its vulnerability to the scourge
of man, it seems a popular tactic to discredit theories of “Global
Warming” that emerged toward the end of the 20th Century. Isn’t
this a rather an ephemeral place to focus. More pressing facts are
upon us in the delicate relationship we have to our earth. The
human population is at level never seen before and the rest of the
planets inhabitants suffer to the point of extinction. We have
already lost a great deal of our bio-diversity and should current
trends continue then the result in 50 years will be horrific.ii
The natural world underlies the built environment; but is a written
and recorded environment emerging? Is this a layer of detachment
too far? Or, the key to preserving the diversity and stability provided
by the interconnected systems of our planet?

In 1972 the first sequence of a gene was determined, Walter

Fiers and his researchers in Ghent began a journey that until now
has given us the science of Genomics iii and unlocked secrets of
ourselves not imagined in the past. The fact is that even now many
are taught that individual genes are attached to specific inherent
qualities, functions or dysfunctions. The truth is that our genes are
very much relative to one another; they work together to enhance
or cancel each other out. As our genes interact in the development
of our cells to create a successful living organism so to organisms
interact to create the balance of a successful environment for us to
inhabit.

The Genome project has much potential, a current focus of creating

GM fuels and food that enhances production from living matter and
makes it more cost effective is driven by the economy. The fervor to
invent more advanced techniques to accurately unravel the
complexity of our genes has already begun to build collaborative
and innovative approaches to tackle this problem. But the potential
is massive and yet at the same time full of ethical concerns that will
bar many from engaging with the ideas. The rest who do embrace
those ideas understand little of them, indeed they can create
complacency. (Why worry about diversity if in a few years dinosaurs
will walk the earth again!)

The rise of the Internet throws up many similar issues. Concepts of

“Mashup data mining” and the “Internet of things” is a door we
have barley begun to open and yet the dangers of this new
connectivity threaten no only our individual freedom, but our human
connection to the preeminent natural world in which we exist. Again
economy leads and the human conscience is subservient to it. The
exclusivity and the division of science make it increasingly more
difficult for a general public to comprehend. The truth is and has
always been that the general public is made up of a multitude of
experts from all fields in all things. The play between ideas is limited
to the ability to communicate those ideas beyond those that
formulate them.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then perhaps play is the

father of innovation. The clockwork radioiv a clear demonstration.
Two technologies combined after almost a century of cohabitation.
The combination of these technologies was reliant on both being
understood within one mind and time to play. Innovation moves at a
much faster pace within the digital domain. The open source
movement has proved that problem solving en-mass is not only a
possibility but also actually an efficient and powerful model of
development. The pitfall of open-source development is not one of
confusion or “too many cooks” but quite simply its inherent lack of
economic structure.

How then to create an open source movement whereby intellectual

property is protected and the rewards of individuals work credited
and rewarded? How can this grass root population of experts begin
to refine and define the kind of innovation we want? How can we
acquaint ourselves with complex ideas in a matter of months that
would normally take decades to filter into the mainstream?

The answers are quite literally on the tip of our tongue and at the
end of our fingertips. Facebook, Wiki, Google and others are like
digital monoliths; huge intangible structures of our age. They could
act as a foundation for considered and universal growth. Problems
arise with the stateless nature of these beasts and the constant
tethering of there power. How we will harness their power should be
a matter of concern to all who use them at this point. Software
written to create almost omnipotent functions will become more and
more commonplace. And the importance of Democracy to triumph
over Capitalism will likely decide our fate and that of our children.
Digital frontiers have just begun to open up and are there for the
taking, The convergence of technology and a consolidation of
entities is further off than many imagine. Just as one mans rubbish
is another mans gold, could we be on the tip of a Metadata rush that
will shift our understanding of information and knowledge. Is this an
age where resources and tools can sit on a cloud and illustrate ideas
from far beyond?

‘PLAY’ A PART…

http://www.facebook.com/DisruptiveTechnologies
i
The Pyramid of the Sun was discovered by Dr. Sam Osmanagic in 2005:
http://www.piramidasunca.ba/en/
ii
Biodiversity is all we have, so the case for conservation ought to be obvious.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/biodiversity
iii
Science concerning the genomes of organisms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genomics
iv
Patented by Trvor Baylis in 1989: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windup_radio