These people did. Who needs billions of dollars and millions of man-hours to launch something into space? They used a digital camera, a GPS-enabled iPhone, a weather balloon, and a desire to see the heavens for themselves -- and successfully launched and retrieved their own space vehicle. Galileo would be proud. Check it out.
Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.
In my last post about finding a purpose for learning and using new media, I made a critical omission: exploration. We need to learn new media because we need to explore.
Like the voyages of discovery from earlier centuries, we set sail with the new media toward worlds unknown. Those voyages of Magellan or Cook brought great risks and great rewards, as history attests. Exploration does come with a price, but so does staying with the familiar and conventional. As quoted by BYU's current president, Cecil Samuelson, Alfred North Whitehead once wisely observed:
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. [source]Are you preserving change amid the order of your life? Are you letting the changes that technology thrusts upon us bury you in triviality, or launch you to new lands?
Sometimes we need foreign shores and a wilderness to wander in order to find ourselves or find our purposes. Just beyond our everyday lives, accessible through new means of communication and collaboration now abounding, could be places rich in resources, promised lands, opportunities for renewal and creativity and expression.
True, going online can be an escape from reality and responsibility. But it may also be a passport to purpose. Sometimes, you don't find your purpose until you set sail. Sometimes, you think you are finding a new route to the spice islands, and you stumble into an America. Sometimes, you have to have the combination of faith and lunacy that will get you to experiment with new worlds in order to break free from confining patterns.
So, this is a call for explorers. I am asking my students and readers to work through the learning curves of the new media not only for practical purposes, but for those lively impractical purposes of art, play, and discovery. We won't go into the wilderness with our eyes closed; but we won't keep our ships in port, either.
So, this is a call for explorers. I am asking my students and readers to work through the learning curves of the new media not only for practical purposes, but for those lively impractical purposes of art, play, and discovery. We won't go into the wilderness with our eyes closed; but we won't keep our ships in port, either.
Everything said here is exactly why I have dived deep into the world of video games recently. It's a whole new world of creative expression that I don't think has even begun to show it's true potential. Grand Theft Auto 5 just came out and, while it is undoubtedly a smart satire and a technical marvel, I just think there's so much more we can do with this medium than pretend to break the law. I want to explore the still mostly unknown region of the enlightening game.
ReplyDeleteThe video is an great example to me of the amazing things that can happen with technology. I think sometimes for me I tend to focus a little more of the negative consequences that are attached with media and technology. This in a way hinders my personal opportunities and experiences that can be brought about through the different digital medias that we have today.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a fresh perspective on technology and the digital age. It is easy to become overwhelmed by the prospect of mastering the web; there are so many sites and apps that we need to check out that it seems like we will never have enough time to explore all of them. While that might be true, it is important to get our feet wet and see what we can do rather than focusing on what we cannot do. It feels almost instinctive to bury our heads in the sand. But we will be blind to a lot of great possibilities if we choose that course.
ReplyDeleteI like Paul's comment about "a whole new world of creative expression." I really enjoy drawing and painting. Recently in my work, I have had to experiment with graphic design. I've found it to be really fulfilling in ways I didn't think about before. In high school I didn't experiment with a lot of artistic computer programs because I thought the only way the creative process would be fulfilling to me was to create with my hands. I'm starting to learn that that assumption isn't necessarily true. I've been able to use technology to create art in ways that are exciting and enriching to me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mele in that I often find myself latching on to any negative feelings I harbor towards technology to a point where I'm preventing myself to really explore and enjoy it and all its goodness that it offers. The romantic in me loves exploring and delving into wondrous new mysteries and cultures, that I sometimes allow that to be the reason why I don't appreciate technology as much as I could. This post is helping me to look at technology in a different light and to focus on its goodness and where it stands in life's progression of exploring techniques.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that you sometimes can't really discover your purpose until you've set sail (and in some cases, floundered a little bit) is really profound. I think sometimes our biggest problem is that we're happy to sit on the shore and splash around in the waves and the sand. We make the water our goal rather than the shores beyond, never arriving because we've never truly left. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI like that you are inviting us to not only use media "for practical purposes, but for those lively impractical purposes of art, play, and discovery." Some of the videos I like most on Youtube are done by PBS Digital Studios. They've taken television icons like Mr Rogers or LeVar Burton and have remixed things they've said on their shows into meaningful songs. It's fun, nostalgic, and inspiring. Technology is amazing.
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