|
Armageddon. By Ben.
When Armaggedon finally arrives we will all be sucked into our computer screens and transformed into 6 megabyte files. We will see out the remainder of our days travelling around the world at 201,236 Kbps down phonelines, through modems and round and round hard drives. The world will end as all our files are corrupted. Our abstract personalities will merge in a brief harmonious moment of understanding. We will go out in a big bang of file sharing, data swapping bliss. Until that point though we have to put up with this slow deterioration of our lives into a computer-generated limbo. Our incomes pass from one set of binary codes to another, we open windows to communicate from one side of the world to the other and we construct virtual umbilical cords that straddle the ether keeping us connected to the information womb. I mention this purely because my brain is suffering from a rash of computer literacy. All through my life I have endeavoured to look suitably puzzled whenever anyone said anything which had a hint of technical language and have therefore managed to avoid doing any job that involves said technical devices. However, recently I’ve found myself responding to questions like “Is it saved as GIFF or a JPEG?” with “I saved it as a binary TIFF because it shaved 4k off its size and gives it a better resolution for the size we’re using it as.” I have no idea where this knowledge has come from and the fact that I now find it in my brain has been worrying me for some time. It has also damaged my idling abilities. No longer can I claim to have no knowledge and therefore lack the wherewithal to perform a technical task and instead I find myself stuck in front of a screen trying desperately to work things out. My life has become a series of worryingly meaningful encounters with a computer terminal where, despite all my attempts at hamfistedness, information actually changes hands. I’ve started to pine for the days where all a computer could get from me was a riotous laugh and a wave of contempt. Days that strecthed endlessly into the horizon with not a keyboard or a mouse in sight. Weeks that went by free of thoughts of megabytes, gigabytes and the omnipresent RAM. Now, though my eyes have become permanently dilated, the computer screen has damaged them to such an extent that everything I see is pixellated. I’ve come to understand that we are all one consciousness connected by spiritual digital processes. We are all either one or nought, defined by our systems and compatible only with similar others. Our connections are scuzzy and we are open to drives both internal and external. This weekend doing the Baggage I have had my new philosophy first pilloried but then proved to be the truth. We’ve all been sat in different rooms suffocating on our own thoughts and devoid of any external input. However, the network has rescued us. Information races from one terminal to the next, feeding our imaginations and building a magazine. Wires send electrical impulses around the offices bringing life to blank pages and creating a spiritual unity. We all have one core and it is the server and through this we can leave our differences behind. I’ve realised that I must stop fighting this knowledge and that we can only reach a higher plane through the universal language of digital exchange. The Baggage is just a microcosm of the greater whole. Armageddon is coming and it’s travelling through e-mail. Ben. |
|
