There’s an empty storefront on Main Street here in downtown SLC, just across from the light-rail station where I get off in the mornings, in which someone has set up two big video displays in the windows, one on either side of the door. These displays run an endless loop of PSAs and promos for the Salt Lake Film Society, presumably for the purpose of informing and entertaining the captive audiences who are standing around waiting for their trains. Or something. Personally, I don’t find the vids all that entertaining or informing most of the time. Moreover, I find I’m increasingly annoyed by the ubiquity of video screens in our environment. Ironic, I know, given my primary interests and hobbies, but honestly, there are times when I’d really rather not have the distraction. At least the loop changes every couple of days so I don’t have to see and hear the same damn thing day after day. And every once in a while, something will turn up that actually catches my interest.
Today, for example, the screens were running the original trailer for 2001: A Space Odyssey. (I have no idea if this has anything to do with all the Apollo anniversary stuff going on, or if it’s pure coincidence.) Well, naturally I had to stand and watch that iconic footage before heading on into the office.
Somehow, though, the experience of watching scenes from 2001 projected onto the window of an empty storefront in the year 2009, with a dreadlocked homeless guy reflected in the glass, is curiously lacking in magic…
When I see ubiquitous flat screen TV’s everywhere, I can’t help but think of Harry Potter. JK Rowling called it magic when the pictures on the walls moved within their frames. We see it every day & call it technology!
In the Potter-verse, magic was technology! And of course, there’s that famous line by Arthur C. Clarke, “any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic,” or something like that.
I guess the thing for me is that there are times when I’d like to unplug from video and the ‘net and just be, you know? And it seems to be getting more difficult to do that, certainly in public places. It’s especially bothersome in restaurants; it’s hard to find a place that doesn’t have TVs everywhere, at least around here.