Click here to view the embedded video.

A bit of background:

To paraphrase Lennon, my visual artefact is what happens while you’re busy planning something else.

The original idea was to be neutral -something that would combine dystopic and utopian views and possibly blur the dichotomy of the opposite outlooks in the vein of the rhisome theory (which really resonates with me). A very initial attempt can be seen as my ‘Virtual Mediation 2‘. My visual artefact was to be a follow-up on this idea but instead of pictures it was to make use of videos.

However, after spending a day trying to work out the video editing software I gave up and hence the rather pessimistic clip. It still needs tweaking – I could spend hours if not days syncing the audio tracks, captions and two videos, something I’d love to do but can’t afford at the moment.

So, there you are - what can I say – grim as it is, enjoy it!

I initially named the piece “Worlds Divided by Conscience” but feel the “Worlds Divided” is perhaps more appropriate. “…by conscience” was perhaps a more personal motivation.
Let me explain. Throughout this course, I find myself thinking back to a talk given by Robert Winston during the Edinburgh Science Festival earlier this year. He presented from his latest book titled ‘Bad Ideas’. What stayed with me from this presentation was that for every positive advancement in science people are able to use it for a negative. Arguably, utopia and dystopia are not worlds apart. However, the benefit of embracing science (or more specifically cyberculture!) should not be avoided because of fear of creating a negative action. Instead, judgement must be appplied. The rapid expansion and development of the cyberworld leaves little time for assessing the risk…so do the benefits justify the risk?
Here is a link to Robert Winston speaking on the same subject to the Guardian

I’d welcome any comments or suggestions for a title of what my artifact means to you.