Signs and Wonders - Art & Culture in the Digital Age

Technology changes culture in all possible ways. In the external world and in our internal world, our feelings, our emotions, our judgment. And now there is a radical technology that is generating radical changes. When the powder was invented, opening the doors to fire arms, it must have been astounding, people may have felt at the brink of a catastrophe. The same with the steam machines being used in ships and trains. Speed was both frightening and exhilarating. And with the internal combustion engine there came almost limitless mobility — and it was huge and liberating. Current technology is even more impressive — because it has no physical bounds: it happens also inside our minds and bodies. This is immense — and all that is immense, Sophocles noted, may bring about a curse… Museums and art itself will change and are changing, the meaning of ethics is different from what it was a few decades ago, psychological issues are being addressed with the manipulation of images. It is a new world, it remains to be seen whether it is brave...