Technology In The Open

To say that I have a love/hate relationship with technology is most likely, especially to those who know me, the understatement of the decade. I certainly use technology on a daily basis, as I am doing now; just about everyone does. But using technology is light years away from understanding how technology works, and by that, I mean just a little bit more than pushing the “on” button on your computer, printer, phone, TV remote, microwave, air fryer, and the list goes on and on. Sure, if I wanted to, I could fake technological know-how, but it would most likely sound like this: “Yeah, so first you hit the round thingy next to the rectangle do-hickey, then wait for the on-screen instructions; if those don’t appear, throw it against the wall and swear… a lot. Hey, it works for me…sometimes. Sound familiar?” I am sure I am not the only one.

Let’s face it, technology can be very frustrating, and the levels of frustration increase exponentially the less you know about how things work and, perhaps more importantly, why they need to work the way they do.  For example, I turned on my computer this morning and all the wallpaper photos that I had set yesterday on several “desktops” that I have, had reverted back to the system operating default photos. Why did this happen? I have no (insert swear word here) idea! So, I did what most people would do in this situation. I opened up Google (or as I like to call it, the “help-me-I’m-an-idiot site”) and dutifully typed in: “Why do my wallpaper photos keep disappearing from my desktop when I turn my computer back on the next day?” Sure enough, there are no less than a dozen entries that pop up, all luring me with catchy titles like: “An easy fix to this problem,” or, “Six possible reasons for this happening,” definitely less appealing than the first one. I open the latter, figuring I don’t want to be accused of taking the “easy” route, or maybe because I just like to swear a lot. The first of the six fixes seemed to me to be the most obvious one that was causing my photos to disappear, as it said something about if the photos you are using are not downloaded to your computer, they will disappear after you shut down. Perfect! Not so fast. I follow the directions for the fix to this problem, which is asking me to open this, then click on that, the scroll to here, which I know sounds confusing, but there are handy photos of what it should look like on your screen. The most important words from this last sentence are, of course, “should look like,” because what was on my screen looked nothing like what I was being shown. Fuck… (I mean insert swear word here)!

What does all this have to do with the two pictures above? I thought you’d never ask. The one on the left is what I imagine the environment is like for tech workers toiling away in windowless, hygienic, sterile, labs with circuit boards, wires, and specialized equipment. When their shift ends, they are frisked and have their memories erased before going home. Okay, too much late-night television. The photo on the right is one that I took in 1998 when I was in Utrecht, Netherlands, giving a paper at a conference. I was out for a walk near my hotel taking in the sights of this beautiful city, looking for the famous Rietveld Schröder House, which was supposed to be near my hotel. According to a handy guide to the city, it is the only building to have been created completely according to De Stijl principles. De Stijl was an art movement (1917-31) that valued abstraction and simplicity, using clean lines, right angles, and primary colors, pioneered by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944). I was getting close, turned onto a small street, and there they were. Two guys in blue coveralls sitting at a table on the road, looking like the knew what they were doing. They saw me looking at them with, I am almost certain, a look of disbelief on my face, and they smiled and waved me over. I obliged and said “Hallo,” pretty much the extent of my Dutch vocabulary, and listened as they told me, in broken English and Dutch, what they were doing. Trust me, if I had any idea what they were talking about I’d tell you. I have enough problems understanding tech in my own language, as you already know from the above. I nodded politely, and asked them if I could take a photo, pointing to my camera. Not sure why I wanted the photo then, I guess I thought I might use it one day. Today is the day.

Los Angeles 2023