Roundtable Statement

Symposium:

• ISEA2013: 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• Lovely Veneer: The underbelly of good design

• Roundtable Statement

• Ruth Aylett

Venue(s):

• The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

• oundtable: Lovely Veneer: The underbelly of good design

  Why has it all become the norm? Not only convenience: that it is ‘free’, that is, you don’t have to pay money for a lot of this. But of course it is not actually free at all – there is no such thing as a free lunch. Users do not understand that they are selling their privacy, much as they do with a store loyalty card. Whether this is a sustainable business model remains to be seen – it is being tested, possibly to destruction – on Facebook. Longevity is out the window. I can read a 15thC will in the UK National Archives Reading Room. The digital scan of this document, which means I can read it almost anywhere, will last for how many years? Not 600, I am willing to bet. We can read the collected correspondence of a 19thC poet; but who will be able to read our emails in 150 years? And this mitigates the privacy issues somewhat: nothing that has gone onto the internet is private but neither is it necessarily long-lived.

Category:

• Round Table