When We Build – Wilson Miner – IxD 102

“We shape our tools and our tools shape us.” – Father John Culkin

Wilson Miner | webstock | Flickr
Wilson Miner.

After watching this talk presented by Wilson Miner, I was left feeling rather inspired. The way he talked about how we changed our entire way of life over something such as lightbulbs which as he said lengthened the work day and how we interact. This is what he meant when he mentioned “We shape our tools and our tools shape us.” Such as the car, the car fundamentally stayed the same but our entire way of life changed around it. The computer is indeed the single greatest tool we’ve made, the screen will shape our environment in the 21th century, “we’re the designers, we’re the builders” this excites me for the future where the stuff of science fiction will no longer be science fiction such as the screens seen in the environment of Bladerunner and Star Wars. Humanity has advanced as much as it has since the 60s because of technology and this technology has as Wilson Miner said is getting more and more invisible, firstly network then the computer and we are left with the screen. The screen is the most important part, is what we the designers will have to continually evolve and make more intuitive.

We will shape humanities future in this ever changing and dynamic world we live in, everything we do will be in response to something, like Robert Irwin he didn’t have control of the room but he did what he could in response to the room. The reason Wilson Miner brought up MONA is because what Robert Irwin did in that room is similar to what Interaction Designers do, we make in response, no matter how big or how small the tool we make, it will shape us and the world around us. I think we can all learn a lesson from this talk and that is everything we do no matter the scale of it will change something in this world forever, much like how cars transformed our way of commuting, electricity changed the entire way we lived, Aero travel opened up the world to each other in a way ships couldn’t and computers have already changed our societies in ways unmatched by most previous achievements by humans. Everything I previously said that changed our ways of life have reached their full capacity in most extents but computers and the digital world will continue to shape and define our world until the end of time.

We must make the most of our time in this world, and whatever we do, we do it so that the future generations can carry the flame and continue to evolve and develop our way of life. In this world the only limit is what we have yet to achieve and humanity has throughout the decades has pushed that boundary of what we can achieve.

 

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