The Technology Mirror
Last night as I was falling asleep, I began thinking about the dreams I would have. I recently heard someone describe the dreaming process as the brain defragging itself of all the information, both intellectual and emotional, it had gathered during the day. It’s an interesting analogy – brain defragmentation. But then I thought that perhaps the reason PC’s need to be defragged is because we have subconsciously imparted our own behavior – the subconscious processing of the dream state – onto the computer.
There is a myth that technology is perfect because it can process billions of pieces of information instantly, or it can beat us at a chess game. The problem is, we created computers, and it seems that an imperfect creature cannot create a perfect machine. The machine itself is a reflection of our desires, both conscious and subconscious, and reveals itself in the process of the machine. Also, the more complex the machine the higher the probability there is for errors, anomalies and what we have come to fear most: “bugs.” So it seems that in every thing we create, we impart upon it not only our ingenuity, but also our subconscious irregularities. I think computers are a fine example of that (and if you’re a Mac user, you must admit there have been problems at some point and time.)
So, since our subconscious desires and neuroses are present in many of the technologies we have created, wouldn’t it seem logical that we can explore our psyche through these very machines. Take , for example, the Roland TR-808 drum machine. This drum machine was created to be used in place of a drummer – and was hated by percussionists for that very reason. Also, the sounds it produced were considered inferior not only to live drums but to other contemporary drum machines. But five years after it was discontinued, it was embraced by a handful of club music producers who found that its “deficiencies” were actually perfect for the new sound that was being created – house, techno and electro – and a whole new world of creativity was born.
It begs the question as to whether the creators of the TR-808, in their quest to produce a tool for studio musicians, and their subsequent failure, imparted in the machine a piece of their own subconscious, perhaps a yearning for the future that was later recognized by those with no prejudice about what it was “meant” to be, and instead discovered what this machine’s true nature was. One person’s failure is another’s muse.
What is more interesting is that these machines have quirks that make them highly coveted. Take E-mu’s SP-1200 or the Akai MPC series that each had their own idiosyncratic tendencies that ultimately produced music that was less mathematical in its performance and ironically, more human because of its flaws.
We, as a culture, seek through technology the lofty goal of perfection through control. Every wire, every circuit is produced to achieve the most perfect state available. But the history of these creations is that each machine exhibits certain “flaws” – flaws that are there because we have imparted them without even being conscious of it. Therefore, the search for perfection is a pointless undertaking, since, first, we can never achieve it as we ourselves can never exemplify it, and secondly, because in our bold strives towards perfection, we miss the beauty of what we have created.
