A child on video chat in the year 2011
The year is 2011 and by my estimation, we should either be living on Mars or fighting robots in a post-apocalyptic world. I say this because where I'm freelancing, I often find myself hanging around the really nice coffee machine with a man who had a hand in creating the graphics for Minority Report and The Matrix. Yes, The Architect likes a cappuccino and swears you can froth soy milk to make a good one.
He really is Mr Future in the way he talks and dresses – it's a very singular and futuristic look and the complete antithesis of most styles. Pretty much everyone (including me), has adopted a style that's an affectation of an idealised past.
Recently, the two things to excite me the most have been the live stream of the Endeavour launch and the film made of photos from the Cassini launch. I also got quite cheered up from reading this article about Mars in yesterday's Observer. Should we spend billions of dollars to investigate the solar system? Oh yeah. Call me an idealist, but I think we've blown quite enough developing bombs that can fly windows to blow up the wrong people.
Yesterday I chatted to Spike using video chat and it struck me that this is the only thing from the film 2001 that's now a proper everyday reality. Unless you count the retro suits. But one of the interesting things about video chat that 2001 nailed absolutely, is the way kids just can't sit still in front of a moving image of themselves.
Posted via email from antigob
