More Way Out Than EPIC
Many of us have seen EPIC 2014, a futuristic vision of the information world in which mega-information companies are the new media conglomerates. This video struck a chord with the library profession because it is a wake-up call to a world in which libraries could be obsolete – or at least one vision of that possibility.
Now comes a new video called Prometeus: The Media Revolution. I really didn’t know what it would be, but I was interested in it because of a statement from it that “experience is the new reality”. I wanted to find out more about what that meant because we now find ourselves in the age of the user experience. Then I started seeing more statements about copyright, wikipedia, Second Life, media wars, Google buying Microsoft and…well it’s a futuristic vision all the way out to 2050. “Way out” may be a good way to describe this five minutes of animation.
EPIC. Prometeus. Both visions of future information worlds in which libraries and librarians do not seem to have a significant role in the gathering, organization and delivery of information. Both make provocative statements, and should give librarians something to think about. These are interesting visions of the future, but perhaps the preferred future is the one we can create by developing a strong sense of our profession and where we fit into the mix. It looks like there will be a number of conversations about this exact topic at the upcoming American Library Association conference. It’s a conversation we will need to continue, and who knows – maybe the next one of these futuristic videos will actually include a vision for future libraries. If not, perhaps it is up to us to create it.
Posted: June 18, 2007 by StevenB
in Technology Issues.
Comments
Pingback from lauren’s library blog » Blog Archive » links for 2007-06-19
Posted: June 19, 2007 at 5:37 am
[...] More Way Out Than EPIC If you thought EPIC 2014 was way out there… here’s another video for you! (tags: video) [...]
Pingback from IB Weblog » Blog Archive » EPIC 2.0, na ja
Posted: June 19, 2007 at 8:26 am
[...] Im ACRL-Blog wird auf ein Youtube-Video namens Prometeus РThe Media Revolution hingewiesen, das mir perșnlich schon ein bisschen sehr vom mittlerweile mitten in der Halbwertszeit alternden EPIC 2014-Film inspiriert scheint. Was allerdings sicher Geschmackssache ist. [...]
Comment from Barbara Fister
Posted: June 19, 2007 at 12:53 pm
EPIC is much better – if only because it poses a genuine question. (The symbolism at the end of this clip may be an implied question – it is certainly raising speculation at the Tube that it’s a plot. But it’s not nearly so clear what we should be considering or why it matters.)
I used EPIC with first year students last fall and they were disturbed because they didn’t realize it was fictional. It was so plausible. This one doesn’t have the documentary feel – it feels more like an advertisement. That creepy one with Anna Paquin – “there will be no there. We’ll all be here.” MCI. Yup, they’re the ones who own those Internet tubes.
Speaking of plausibility … one bit that totally threw me out of the storyline … BBC follows the New York Times?! puhhhleez. And then the joke about Lawrence Lessig abolishing copyright also annoyed me … Might as well have thrown in that librarians are purveyors of pornography while you’re at it, it’s just as accurate.
Donovan, thanks for the link. I’ve not been a fan of SL largely because it seems to be a replication of capitalism. Why would I want to visit a world where the object seems to be acquiring real estate, building things, selling things, and making money? Especially when its visually just slightly more exciting than Pong? I mean, I already live in that world, with better graphics.
Pingback from Vision of the future « Eric Jennings
Posted: June 22, 2007 at 4:43 pm
[...] Vision of the future Posted June 19, 2007 There are a couple videos I just came across that have an interesting vision of the future of information. One is called EPIC 2014. The other is Prometeus: The Media Revolution. [...]
Comment from Donavan Vicha
Posted: June 18, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Re: the Second Life references in the video, it’s certain they were throwing around recognizable names to ensure better understanding. I thought I’d toss in a link to other likely candidates for the virtual pipeline: http://www.metaversed.com/16-jun-2007/walled-gardens-and-utopian-metaversal-roadmap