NEW Vs. OLD Jun 30 2004
In the name of progress, my favourite tub was replaced with an electronically controlled, temperature announcing, modern, efficient all-singing all-dancing wonderbath. To be fair, tub was on its last legs, and wonderbath is undeniably impressive... But during the switch, something was lost, something that I place a great deal of value on.
I'm in rather a muddle; I spend my days working on my Mac, producing digital content and firing it off into the ether. I listen to music on my iPod and take photos with my mobile phone. I write articles on my weblog. I love all this technology, yet at the same time I find myself trying to compensate by buying used furniture, restoring broken appliances, putting slide film into my 35mm camera and writing letters by hand. And it's not simply a bid to stay fashionably lo-fi and analogue. Without getting my hands dirty once in a while, I find myself getting more and more detatched from the things that make up most of the daily interactions in my life.
The other day my friend Henry and I took my iBook to pieces to replace a broken part. After the initial nerves of cracking open the casing, we started to enjoy ourselves getting deeper and deeper into the core. Once we'd replaced the part and re-sealed that perfect white casing, it once again became an impenetrable magic box - but Henry and I had seen its guts, beaten the endless screws and fixed what had seemed for a while to be untouchable. It felt like we'd taken back a bit of lost territory, a small victory for mankind against technology.
I remember a tutor at university telling me how he's awaiting a technological backlash, when everyone rejects the things they can no longer understand, and goes back to a hands-on, self sufficient lifestyle. I don't believe it will happen, but I like the idea - I think it's something we need to keep control of.