Doug Hindson

0:23[Applause]

0:26hello everyone wow my voice is really loud now thank so much for having me guys yeah.

0:31So without further Ado my name is dark hon I'm a director animator illustrator and general maker and recently graduated from Kingston University so I'd like to kick things off by showing my recent graduation film which touches on some of the fraud relationships that we often have with technology so I'll show that first and then I'll talk for a little bit someone said that we are the generation who share everything well not everything online personas are carefully crafted things who really wants to see a photo of you reheating yesterday's spaghetti bolones anyway but now that we're so tightly wound up in this social media the only question left is do I want to share my life as a series of mundan 6C videos or a feed of reblogged flavor of the month images this is all trivial really a young man grappling with his relatively inconsequential first world problems and how long before this kid here is summing up his life in 140 characters he probably already is I bet he's got more followers than me I guess what it boils down to is happiness happy is something that we as a generation rarely seem to be it's not that we're unhappy it's that we're not happy and it's not as though we're the first generation to feel this way either not the first to ask ourselves these questions we won't end up like that couple will we suddenly finding ourselves without anything to say to each other maybe that's the reason we crave the constant connection technology promises us deep down we're afraid of the moments when we are truly alone because it is in these gaps that regrets and worries come flooding in I mean shouldn't I be doing something more meaningful with my time it's not that I'm not enjoying what I'm doing it's just that I wonder what I would be doing if I wasn't doing this would I be the person I'd always feared I'd become or would I be the person I'd always dreamed I'd be what can we do but keep on going heading in whichever direction seems best at the time yes somewhat crude but y Charming at the same time.

3:31So yeah when I started making this film I was grabbed by the fact that coming of age films and coming J coming of age stories are something that continually told and retold so why do these narratives remain relevant and and actually hardly change there are issues and experiences which every generation has to Grapple with in their own way and on their own terms and yet it's important to remember that we are not the first people to face them.

4:01So I think technology is a great p a great place to start with that. And I'd like to go back to the basics at the risk of patronizing everyone and also getting very theoretical so I apologize in advance I've also thrown in a Plato quote to make myself sound more intelligent than I am the German philosopher ANS cap Define technology as an extension and an expansion of ourselves our biological processes organs and physical attributes so basic axe was an extension of our arm allowing far more efficient killing and butchering and the discovery of fire allowed some of the stomach's processes to be outsourced so that food was broken down more easily and both of these advancements basically allowed our brains to develop into the incredibly complex organis organs that they are now.

4:45And so as we developed soda technology and telescopes extended the range of our human Vision machines allowed massive amplification of our physical strength cap would say that true self realization is through technology few would argue that these developments were detrimental overall to humans they've allowed us to overcome the grind of Simply surviving and allowed us to focus on more creative Pursuits the the author Marshall mcluen writing in 1966 predicted a time when creativity was at the reach of everyone rapidly we approached the final phase of the extensions of man the technal technological simulation of Consciousness when the creative process will be collectively and corporately extended to the of human society so perhaps we've almost reached that point not quite the simulation of Consciousness but certainly accessibility to creativity for almost the whole of human society thanks largely to the internet for better or worse and it's it's always quite popular to cynically sneer at technology in general I think especially today but as you'll see later on. That's it's sort of always always been the case you don't have to look very far to see a slle of articles describing how the next generation is and we'll only be able to interact by the comfort of a glowing rectangle or how if we could only turn away from the evil that is social media we would suddenly rekindle those failing relationships and stride out into the sunlight and find happiness perhaps they're right.

6:14But I see these as symptoms rather than the problem itself Tech magnifies issues holding a mirror up to society so maybe we do get the tech we deserve so at this point I find it quite comforting to see that. Actually we're far from the first people to worry about these issues here's the Plato quote and so he was actually worried about the introduction of writing over 2,000 years ago he says if men learn this it will implant forgetfulness in their souls they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves but by means of external marks it's pretty easy to dismiss Plato's worries with the gift of hindsight obviously we still do talk a little bit face to face but it's important to remember how much of an impact the written word would have had on a society in a culture that had previously only communicated by the spoken word and Plato was anxious for society not to abandon one thing in the pursuit of another skipping ahead to the 1800s and the Industrial Revolution the Lites rebelled against the increasing mechanization of manufacturing smashing machines in protest against a lowering of workers conditions and perhaps in fear of what the result would be for Society at large the Scottish author Thomas kalle writes in 1829 that technology causes a mighty change in the modes of thought and feeling men are grown mechanical in head and in heart as well as in hand so it's interesting to draw the parallel between the worries of these historical technological shifts and the one which we experience now as digital pervades everyday life so technological development often has inevitable consequences perhaps creating problems or side effects in the process of trying to solve others I quite like the story of dilus.

8:05And Icarus as an analogy for this he crafts a set of wings for them both knowing full well that the impetuous young man will most likely not heed his warnings and fly too close to the Sun sure enough Icarus plummets to the ground in Flames the anonymity that the internet makes possible allows people to experiment with different identities but as a side effect also breeds a toxic culture devoid of repercussions whilst on online social networks extend our connection to our friends they may tend to diminish the face to- face communication. So if we go to back to the definition of Technology as an extension of ourselves description it. Actually becomes quite difficult to find the real human value to the technology which perpetuates itself today in fact often times we actually create technology to help us deal with some of the technology we've already created case in point the selfie stick that we all love to hate Tech makes things easier but it does not necessarily bring a purpose to our lives there's a skew towards consumption and repetition rather than creation so does technology now provide solutions to problems that never existed iPod toilet roll dock anyone but then technically we didn't need fire or axes or telescopes or machines or the internet we could still be living in the primordial ooze but then where would we be covered in ooze and no one wants to be covered in o except him so technical development is to a certain extent inevitable there's no going back.

9:36But I think we need more critical adoption and perhaps a slightly Lite approach small changes to our everyday life unplugging every once in a while in order to really connect through the Fantastic technology we have around us thanks very much