Once upon a time …
In the Emperor’s Court, the EC, there was once a Director
General (who I shall call DG) who met an alchemist. This alchemist whispered in
DG’s ear and told him of a magic way of making all those who research and
develop Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) more creative and
innovative. DG, being under political pressure to deliver innovation, was of
course interested, for people were saying that innovation was sorely lacking in
his particular area – at least that was how it seemed to the court followers
who gathered around the EC. And being inclined, like many in the European
world, the West, to think in terms of deficits, a simple self-constructed
reality, DG was more than glad to think about a creativity deficit, and how
alchemy possessed the power to correct this.
The alchemist also told DG that alchemy also possessed a special
feature, that only those wise and clever would be able understand that alchemy
has the power to cure the creativity deficit. Those people who did not
understand this were fools and unfit for office.
And so it came to pass, that many alchemic events took
place, and many people who were unable to understand how alchemy could cure the
self-invented creativity deficit, kept quiet, for they did not want to be seen
as fools or classified as being unfit to hold office. A special study was even
commissioned which was full of new evidence of the creativity enhancing power
of alchemy, yet none who read this report could see this evidence, but they
kept quiet, for now also the smell of money was in the air – the special aroma
of 6 million euro. So, even more people were crying-out the message that the
uncreative technologists needed the special creative powers of alchemists –
turning lead into gold and all that stuff, or in this case, transforming
technologists into creative people.
Thus it
was that a new topic appeared in the Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2016-2017 in
the area of Information and Communication Technologies – ICT-36b-2016: Boost synergies between alchemists and technologists.
Meanwhile, a little boy stood by watching and smiled to
himself, knowing that those in the non-European world, in China, in India, and
other places could learn from this sad but all too familiar tale, how not to
approach the use of alchemy in ICT and other research areas. And thus armed,
they would unleash against the vainglorious
Enlightened ones, the forces of creative destruction, and these Enlightened ones, not knowing what was
happening to them, would retreat even further into the past, that place where
they surely do belong.
And next week, continuing with the critique of DG CONNECT’s
instrumentalisation of artists for their own ends (some hidden), I will present
the ICT work programme topic ICT-36b-2016: Boost synergies between alchemists
and technologists.
Every sword needs a stone on which to sharpen it, so expect
a lot more of these preliminary excursions into the fragmented stone-age minds of the vainglorious Enlightened ones, as bit-by-bit
their strange and primitive beliefs, their rather odd ideologies and dogma,
their silent narratives, are exposed to all those citizens that are, for very
sound reasons, rejecting science and technology, and looking for something that
the West (not even with all its STARTing, STEAMing and SEADing) will not be
able to provide them with – life lived in balance and harmony and the science
and technology that this will require. Here is a heresy on a scale beyond your
worst nightmares …
“Great Scott! The man is surely mad, for he cannot see that
science and technology are independent of culture, and must be the same
throughout the universe.”
“Leave Paul alone, you men with your patriarchal power
structures, technological determinism and positivism, expecting us women to
behave like you. Yes it’s me again, the crazy female artist known as Julia.
Well, you wanted technologists to work with artists, so what exactly were you
expecting? This is artistic freedom babe, and you don’t like it, do you? And
this reminds me, that I must put pen to paper and write about DG CONNECT, the
Roman Catholic Church and the Soviet Communist Party … Julia xxx”
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