dConstruct 2011 – a review

At dConstruct 2011 cyberspace was declared dead. Gone are the days when we dreamed about walking in second life, uploading our brain to the net and leaving our bodies behind to float forever in an infinite virtual space. Now we’ve abandoned the long stairway to cyber-heaven, where do we find ourselves? After scaring people for too long, technology has begun to hide itself. First it shrunk clunky boxes into shiny objects, then it transformed winding cables into waves of air. Suddenly it was behind our walls, underneath our floors and our offices and kitchens, and one day, without anyone taking notice, it jumped into our pockets and has not left us since. How do you design for a world where not life, but technology has become virtual, something that can do and be anything you can imagine, but that in itself has no particular shape or place? The answer is both complex and simple. It’s a lot like living in the old days: we share stories and create memories, we hang out with our friends and family and try to make sense of the world in which we live. But it is like living in the new days too, every object has its virtual doppelgänger, every move turns into data that can be tracked and traced, at any place we can connect with anyone and anything else. In a way technology has become more like ‘the force’ – an omnipresent faceless power that can be tapped into at any moment to use for… to use for what?