From: Emlyn O'Regan (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Fri Aug 25 2000 - 01:03:09 MDT
The concept of physical beauty is a weird one. I'd be surprised if it has
much to do with our physical bodies in the future.
I find myself spending ever more time in the weird disembodiment of online
life. I like it, I think, but it does conflict with the physical realm
somewhat; each competes for limited attention.
I remember reading some predictions by Faith Popcorn (geez, where did she
get that name?), that the near future would be marked by people retreating
into the home-fortress, venturing out less and less often, having everything
delivered to them via the wonderful internet. Although I was dubious at the
time, I can see it more now. Recently I've had a few friends raving to me
about a new Home Shopping service introduced by one of our biggest
supermarket chains; you do your grocery shopping online, and it turns up at
the front door. As someone who relies on walks to the local shops for
exercise (and generation of vitamin D), it doesn't appeal. But then again, I
spend a lot more time at home than most people (teleworking - actually most
of my time is on the 'net, of course, which is not much like being home at
all).
I see two convergent trends. The first is that noted above; the retreat from
interaction, into the home. The second is stronger global service markets,
implying larger distances between supplier & consumer, and so more reliance
on advanced information & communication technology, and less reliance on
travel. That's in its early days still, but is increasing rapidly. As
bandwidth increases and latency falls, as the tools improve and we become
more comfortable with them, how does physical travel (slow, disruptive,
expensive) compete with electronic communications (fast, easy, cheap)?
Back onto the topic of beauty... Maybe I hang out with too many geeks, but I
notice more concern with appearance of people's cars than with their own
appearance (my car is a broken down '81 ford laser, and I think it still
might have the upper hand). The power of the car in the modern psyche (what
does psyche mean again? ergh, well, you know) is immense. I'd imagine that
TH types tend to underestimate the strength of the car as a symbol of
identity in competition with the body itself. It seems to be about trying to
get security & freedom in one package, a little travelling embassy of the
home fortress.
I'm convinced that "telepresence robots" will be a future move. One path is
as a natural evolution of the car. People love their cars, but they don't
necessarily like being in them. Much better if you could stay at home, and
drive your car from the safety of your loungeroom over your web tv (maybe
the next version of the playstation will support this).
Of course, when it arrives, your car would have to be able to do the things
that you would do, if you had been in it. Not so hard to make it talk, and
listen (speakers and microphones, big deal). It'd have to get a lot smaller,
but that's ok, because there's no passengers in it any more. So it would be
able to go into buildings, talk to people (probably other "cars"). It'd need
to be able to manipulate things, and navigate weird terrain, so it might
have robot arms and legs.
You can see where I'm heading. I think you might find that there is a
significant movement, before body mods are possible, towards external
bodies. You stay at home, and send your personal avatar out into the world.
It interacts with other avatars and those few souls still out there in
person. These things would be quite amazing visually, I think; people would
take great pride in them. Although I wonder if they'd all be same-same, much
like modern cars.
You can see it would meet all kinds of needs; fear of the outside world, a
powerful feeling of not being in danger of physical violence, yet an ability
to interact with the world using a suped-up body which far excedes the
capabilities of the flesh form. Security and freedom, together at last. Or
that's how I'd sell it, anyway.
It's just an intermediate step, on the road between here and an utterly
virtual existence (where b2b means brain 2 brain). But all the steps are
intermediary in reality; life is about the journey, given the uninspiring
destination.
I know it seems like a weird vision of the future. Next time you see a
couple of younguns sitting near each other, communicating by sending text
messages to each other on their mobiles, think about this again.
Emlyn
Nadia wrote:
another excellent topic, Natasha
I love what you say about have a beautiful psychology. As one goes
"out-of-body" by going on line, all that is visible (other than a typeface)
is one's psyche. Sure we can go to a website, look at a picture, and
sometimes the beauty inside is reflected outside. But. Too many times ugly
people have beautiful skins, and they show their "true colors" on a list
forum or in posts... or a person who seems frumpish and drab in person may
have Beautiful Emotions and lovely thoughts, images...words flowing as an
online entity...
this "inside out" approach is what first fascinated me about meeting people
thru the net.
As one who is vividly enthusiastic about beauty, I think one of the things
you might explore is pushing the envelope of *what* we accept as beauty. As
you know, I believe advertising has much to do with what we commonly eat -
visually as well as actual fuel nourishment. With your background and
knowledge of aesthetics and ads, and your cool art series about body
enhancement, what can you see being needed...
... as the new beauty alarms, repels, attracts, ...look, if people start to
modify... leopard skins, diamond nails, fish scales, translucent eyeballs,
extra long limbs, extreme thickness of muscles, etc. Some people won't know
how to react, will they?
Things that NOW look freakish, because they'd be impossible naturally.
Will there be prejudice against mods? I think so.. unless....
People will accept it ... surely they need to be re-educated... will it be
cool? Wil it be a trend? um...sure...if it's presented well, and backed by
sponsorship and ads?
public awareness? endorsments? what....
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