Happy Frankenstein Day

I’m thinking about our relationship to technology, in this modern time of communication in a blink.

Humans as Christian Ervin, an interaction designer and architect,  reminds me have always manipulated their worlds.  He has just finished an advanced degree looking into the role of digital technologies in contemporary society.

I’m wondering how to pose questions and continue our conversation. My minder stutters, as I grasp for the language to use. While I have trouble thinking about how to talk about malleable realities, encoded information and action potentials, I did discover, today is Mary Shelley’s birthday.  The author of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” (1818), was born 216 years ago today in 1797.

What’s the connection? And why do we still think about Shelley’s work almost 200 years after it was published? An article in Washington Post article, quoting Ronald Levao, editor of the ” Annotated Frankenstein”  (Harvard Univ. Press),  reminds us Shelley “articulated our desire for, and fear about, the transgression of fundamental boundaries…. between vitality and dead matter, the human and the inhuman, ideal aspiration and monstrous consequence.”  So, I’m not digging up graves, but I am thinking,  about consequences and boundaries. Plus isn’t it time to use the name “Frankenstein” in something I manipulate and create?

The project the works is  called “Frankentweet” and will turn into a documentary film. It will also take on other forms and ways of involving interaction.  This is post by E. Frankenstein, but there will be other authors on the Artchange, Inc. blog.  Stay tuned.

Want to learn a bit more about Ervin’s work and “The Digitally Mediated Body? Watch Ervin’s TEDxSitka talk.