I'm working on brochure-zines to hand to strangers, asking
them to join me in tracking the path of technology. I remember the first
digital device to enter my life was a wristwatch. It was a gift from my
biological father, Dennis McNeil, when I turned 9. He won it playing cards. It
had glowing red numbers rising out of a black background. It was like magic.
After that, a tape recorder in 1976 where I recorded president Ford on the TV,
a bicentennial parade, favorite songs on the radio, and the wind, THE WIND! I was obsessed with the wind
and was trying to find ways of recording different kinds of wind. What are different kinds of wind? I do not
remember my theories, but I am happy it was on my mind. I held the recorder
into the expansive song of the maw, then held it a different way, but each time
it was the same sound of intense blowing against the microphone.
Between
1975 to now, it feels like a blur of technological growth in industry and
science. My digital watch was like a miracle. I remember staring at it in the
dark JUST BEFORE it changed time, especially if all the numbers were about to
switch to 10:00. We are now unable to grasp precisely what is in use and what
is still ideas in the realm of science fiction. So often, I hear about a
remarkable advancement in robotics or genetics that is already five years old.
I am not interested in studying scientific journals as a tracking device; I
want to see what is in use. Entering a grocery store is an overwhelming and
exciting flood of technology, from the automatic doors to the massive rows of
freezers and conveyor belts, and the laser beam EPS: Electronic Point of Sale
at the checkout register. I know, because I was once a cashier. Where has technology
entered our lives, and how did the new relationships with these different
devices turn out?
One of the most remarkable things about being alive in 2020 is that we are surrounded by things that would make people a hundred years ago laugh in disbelief. Imagine
telling them about the new US Navy drone that can dive into a body of water and
swim underwater as fast as it can fly. This time is a hinge, and there has
never been anything like it. Talking about people a hundred years ago, in 1920,
only 35% of homes had electricity in the US. How quickly we learned to rely
upon it. This year I have been taking one full 24-hour day each month to be
technology-free. January I was in a friend's cabin with a wood stove, which was
cozy and filling a notebook. The climate crisis gave me a very warm February. I
am excited how the outdoors feel and taste when I am not allowing myself in a
car or bus, I have to walk without a phone. My magnifying glass and binoculars
are allowed because they do not require electricity or gas—a pen, notebook,
fork, spoon, matches, wood. Cooking on the wood stove was exciting, trying to
estimate the temperature and opening the flue to ride the flame with a breath.
How fantastic, and if I had children, we would do that once a month for their
entire childhood. What an adventure to unplug everything.
The first
thing I do on my first day back in the maze of pipes, wires, and airwaves of
our human world is to begin looking at every movement made possible or tracked
by technology. I am excited to compare these notes with notes I will take ten
years from now, twenty, or more. How much more surrounded will we be by then?
How much deeper will technology be in the human body? The merge is happening,
quietly, gradually, and some days I have no idea how everyone else is feeling
about it. When I ask, many people seems suspicious of it, but often I hear,
"Well, it's inevitable at this point." What is inevitable? The merge
with metal and human bone, blood, and meat? People I love have had their lives
extended due to breakthroughs in medicine and science. Writing poems in the
glow of artificial light, wondering when the time will come when we can have
bioluminescent body parts. I would love to have glow-in-the-dark earlobes; it
sounds warm, and I imagine the earrings that are possible. Let us write poems
together while carefully studying the machinery of the human world.
