artist huit

Have you ever questioned if you actions on the internert actually garner any results? Ken Goldberg's Telegarden addresses this idea. Viewers log onto the Telegarden website and take care of plants via the internet, watering, adding sunlight, etc. In the center of this small garden, a robotic arm is present to carry out the actions the viewer has sent. Do these actions actually effect the plants, or did Goldberg have everything present. He is trying to make people question the "infallibility" of the internet, that it does not control every aspect of life. The engineering professor also created Demonstrate, where viewers can log onto the site, and have the ability to control a camera on the Berkley campus, zooming in and out on various students passing by. I like his work because it is a demonstation of how dependent on the internet society is. We are too lazy to actuall grow plants, but we are more than willing to click on certain buttons and have someone else do it for us. But maybe they weren't even doing it for us. The latter piece is more subtle in how it takes over our lives. We don't actually get out and participate in activites to see things, we have to see it through the internet. It's actually kind of sad....