This week I am in Aspen, Colorado, helping to redefine the IDCA's mission under its new owner, the AIGA. Thus far there have been a variety of team-based thought-provoking exercises that feel a bit like group therapy. Given the usual state of my mind, I can probably use it. Our key topic was to discuss "discourse."
I scored fairly poorly on my SAT verbal test many decades ago so it is of no surprise that I've never felt particular kinship to the word "discourse." In spite of my deficiencies, I learned a great deal from the discourse shared amongst our team.
Architect of the upcoming WWII museum Bart Voorsanger unraveled a mystery for me regarding restaurants. Ever been in a restaurant and you can't hear what the other person is saying because it's so loud from the noise coming from other tables. Apparently this is by design -- restaurants that have a noisy buzz tend to be regarded as more popular and trendy. To design the acoustics such that you could actually hear your partner would run contradictory to the marketing effect of the crowd's drone. Bart then pointed out that in our society we pay for the luxury of quiet -- a truly expensive restaurant is much more quiet than the trend-a-rama restaurants, in the same way that a house in a gentrified suburb is in enveloped in complete quiet compared to a working-class neighborhood. Grandson of Charles & Ray Eames, Eames Demetrios, quipped that you don't have to be rich to buy silence -- you can sit in silence for free in the desert.
The reality is, however, that some people actually like the noise in their world. Some people will turn on the radio or TV when they are alone. I'm definitely of this camp. However there are those times that I need complete silence to concentrate. I use industrial earplugs to find my focus.
Our conversation moved to mobile phones and how we cannot stand to not be not talking to someone else. How many times have you seen someone walking somewhere and instead of 'wasting' that time just walking, they initiate a remote conversation. Design champion Bruce Nussbaum of BusinessWeek posited that perhaps the reason why we tolerate listening to so many people on our mobiles is because we are desperate to talk. That the act of listening is the price we pay in order to engage in the act of speaking.
Perhaps what is endangered by our increasing propensity to communicate, is our decreasing opportunity to reflect. Master hacker and Media Lab alum Limor Fried created a computerized broche that neutralizes cell phones within a certain radius around the wearer. With this broche, one could certainly enforce more contemplation in their local environment. However, getting arrested by the local authorities is a probable outcome.
Communication technology makes it easier for us to communicate. Too much communication with others reduces opportunites for us to communicate with ourselves. The conclusion? Do both. Excuse me while I go and reflect on that.
Posted by maeda at June 29, 2005 06:32 PM