Creators Project, the Oil Spill and Technology's Double-Edged Sword
Posted by Alex_Pasternack on Saturday, Jun 26, 2010
The paint isn’t even dry yet at New York’s Milk Studios, where dozens of artists and hordes of fans are about to be spilling over each other – and spilling their drinks all over the place – as they indulge in what will certainly be the most interesting techno-culture festival in recent memory.
(Watch the Creators event here)
But when the big acts hit the stages at VICE/Intel’s Creators Project launch event later on (including a certain acroynymed songstress, hint hint), it may be hard to remember that this country is still in the midst of its most massive environmental disaster to date, one whose lasting effects remain hard to fathom.
But look at the iconic logo image for the project, plastered all over its website and publications – Takeshi Murata’s lush Melter 2 (video here) – and then gawk at that image above, by Kari Goodnough of Bloomberg News. (Scroll to the Murata above too.) Maybe that resonance can serve as a reminder that technology helps us create some amazing things, but it can lead to some serious FUBAR moments too. From the Times today:
Calculating the spill to date using the current estimate, and factoring in the approximately 365,000 barrels collected so far from the wellhead, results in a total of about 1.9 million to 3.5 million barrels, or about 80 million to 150 million gallons since the rig exploded on April 20.
By contrast, the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989 released an estimated 10.8 million gallons of oil…
For every bird found covered by petroleum muck on a beach, there are untold others who simply die on an secluded beach. For every dolphin that washes ashore, there is another that sinks at sea, and so on.
It is also virtually certain that fish larvae, which are exquisitely sensitive to oil, are dying by the millions as well.
How well we keep in mind the risks of over-reliance on technology will inform what kinds of benefits we’ll be able to reap from technology in this heady, exhilarating century. Even if our highest-tech equipment is often our deadliest and our riskiest, that doesn’t mean it always has to be. Witness, for example, the work of NYC Resistor and other hackers who are using technology to remake the world, or the promise of these breakthroughs or the vision of F.A.T. Lab’s open-source EyeWriter (made in part by Creator James Powderly). Remember the motto James Cameron, one of our most prolific socially-minded futurists, baked into his Terminator epic: “No Fate: the future is what we make of it.”
In the case of events like Creators – covered in technology made of plastic, powered by mostly dirty fossil fuel sources – how we tie real social and environmental progress to the world of art and entertainment will determine how far we can go. The implicit question of the Creators themselves should prove instructive: will we be programmed, and suffer the consequences when the program goes haywire – or will we be the programmers?
Motherboard is part of Vice/VBS, the creators behind the Creators Project.
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Email: alexp at motherboard dot tv. @pasternack,
