Visions of the future: Vision and spectacle in technological progress

Technology has become ubiquitous within modern society. It, and its products, are everywhere. However, technology, though ubiquitous, is far from invisible. Technology is used in the production of spectacle, from art, to special effects, to sport. Technological products have begun to form the basis for trends in fashion and design. Yet at the same time, the technology that lies behind the production of visions and consumer goods remains largely invisible, and is becoming increasingly more so. In this essay, I shall attempt to show that, while technology is used to produce spectacle, the technology itself, and the power structures it represents and maintains, is increasingly sheeding its visibility and moving from the level of the macro- to the micro-scopic.

Fast Company. “Creating A Spectacle” Fast Company .com (June 2003) http://www.fastcompany.com/fast50_04/winners/aarts.html (Accessed: 19 August, 2006)
As one of the larger consumer electronics producers, Phillips has a guiding role in the future place of technology, particularly within the domestic sphere. As such, the Fast Company article provides an interesting and useful insight into the perception of technology by those who ostensibly have control over the production and design of it. Moreover, the article serves to confirm the thesis as presented in the introduction: that the products of technology are becoming increasingly, ubiquitously, visual, while at the same time, the technology itself is becoming increasingly less so.

Miah, Andy. “Be Very Afraid: Cyborg Athletes, Transhuman Ideals & Posthumanity.” Journal Of Evolution & Technology, Vol. 13 (October 2003) http://www.jetpress.org/volume13/miah.html (Accessed: 21 August, 2006)
Elite-level sport is a high-visibility arena. Miah’s article, then, with its assertion that “the degree of sophistication that sports equipment describes, alludes to technology that will become indistinguishable from the athlete’s body,” provides a more subtle basis for an argument for the naturalised invisibility of spectacular technology. Miah’s arguments allow a link between human identity and sport, between sport and technology, and thus (though Miah himself does not seem to pick up on it) between technology and both spectacle and naturalisation.

Aghajanian, Arthur. “Seduction by Any Means Necessary (?)” The Journal Of New Media & Culture, Vol. 1 (July 2002) http://www.ibiblio.org/nmediac/summer2002/seduction.html (Accessed: 15 August, 2006)
Similar to sport, art can be highly visual in nature. The role that technology plays in both the production and performance of art can thus be used to provide insight into the nature of both. While Aghajanian’s article is focussed primarily on the art that is produced, it also serves as an outline of the manner in which technology, while remaining largely un-noticed, can produce spectacle. What is particularly interesting about Aghajanian’s article is that he appears to use Baudrillard’s ideas of seduction and the hyper-real in an apparently contradictory manner: according to Aghajanian, technology, which is almost always a creature of the hyper-real, can function by seduction, something the hyper-real cannot. This might allow Baudrillard’s ideas to be exploited in the essay more fully, in that technology’s spectacular products may be simulacra, but the quest for invisible technology represents a form of seduction.

Wikipedia Nanotechnology (August 2006) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology (Accessed: 27 August, 2006)
While Wikipedia is often maligned as a reference source, and while the article itself is flagged as being questionable in some of the assertions that it makes, it provides a reasonable introduction to the field of nanotechnology: the science of the invisible small. More than this, however, the article also provides a number of summaries of possible roles for technology arising from investigation of the (practically) invisible. The use of the article, then, is that it demonstrates that there are practical reasons and uses for objects invisible to the naked eye, that find immense use in visible technological phenomena.

Regis, Ed. “The Incredible Shrinking Man” Wired 12.10 (October 2004) http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/drexler.html (Accessed: 27 August, 2006)
From a more reputable source than the Wikipedia article, but confirming many of the same themes, the article from Wired has a two-fold function. Firstly, it demonstrates some of the spectacular nature of the production and inspiration of technology: the argument between Drexler and Smalley was public, fiery, and controversial. Secondly, the article deals briefly with the ‘grey goo’ fear, which is of note for the essay as a whole, because it is a fear that operates on a colour-centred, macroscopic level, despite the fact that it is theoretically dealing with largely invisible processes.

Waldby, Catherine. Revenants: The Visible Human Project and the Digital Uncanny (August 1996) http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/Uncanny.html (Accessed: 22 August 2006)
A discussion inspired by Waldby’s work would perhaps not be complete without a reference to her work, however this article does not fit fantastically with the over-arcing theme of the essay. What Waldby’s work is useful for, in this context, is as a commentary on, and a further demonstration of the way in which technology becomes capable of generating spectacle, and in modifying the visuality of the previously invisible. The Visible Human Project is, perhaps, one of the most clear-cut demonstrations of the way in which technology can be used in the creation of visual data. Moreover, this earlier article is much less concerned with contingent, or accidental facts (such as the first body suitable for the Visible Human Project being male), as a grounds for judgements than some of her later work.

Technology, or the modern scientific paradigm from which it develops, is moving towards the invisible in a quest to minimise energy expenditure, increase efficiency, and maximise flexibility. The design of technological products is also moving towards an inobtrusiveness, and a desire to not intrude on, or offend, conventional sensibilities. But at the same time, technology is increasingly becoming spectacular, in the sense that, while the technology itself is invisible, the results of the utilisation of that technology are becoming incorporated into highly visible and spectacular arenas of society. In a sense, the invisibility of technology is making it increasingly seductive, while at the same time the products of technology are proliferating endlessly.