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Viewpoint #11
Blur: the impact of speed on connected culture
In this issue, we consider the notion of blur - the speed with which change impacts on culture. Like the Futurists, our initial thoughts conjured up ideas of accelerated motion, fast-forward action; a word, a moment, a nanosecond of compressed time within which everything happened impetuously and simultaneously. And this has a certain appeal - the idea that time hurries and we must hurry along with it.
This is the 21st century after all - the genome century, the virtual century, the biotech century, the century of hyper-architecture and hypermobile living. But it is also a time when, post 9/11, we are, at last, considering the implications of speed and change for change’s sake. What if ‘slickness’ and ‘aesthetic obsolescence’ aren’t the only way forward? What if globalisation is wrong? What if multi-tasking is a relic of selfish Gordon Gekko pasts rather than a hint of our altruistic ‘people-orientated’ futures? And what if economics could be replaced with humanomics? And can brands, those hollow, hard-nosed harridans of free-market frippery, be given a new heart? A heart that, like those of the best heroes and heroines, is transparent, honest and, dare we say it, true?