Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Before And After Science



The ICA hosted a conversation between Steven Johnson and Brian Eno last night, taking as a starting point Johnson's new book The Ghost Map. This details the events surrounding a cholera epidemic in London in 1854, and its eventual diagnosis by a local doctor, this was posited by Johnson as a crucial event in allowing the continued urbanisation of the growing population. All in all it was a fascinating event, with the discussion tangenting off all over the gaff. Apparently by next year half of the worlds population will live in cities, with over half a billion of those folk being Chinese. Eno is part of something called the Long Now Foundation who promote thinking into
ideas around the sustainability of humanity over the next 10,000 years. Subjects touched on included the interface between the virtual world in Second Life, and the various spin-off financial interactions in the real world, the absorption of slum dwellings into urban centres in the third world, the voting patterns in the US elections (apparently urban centres are 70:30 in favour of Democrats).

Some members of the audience felt that Johnson and Eno were divorcing themselves from the real financial decision making process taken by governments (and the US in particular), and indulging in elitist intellectual pontification, but the level of response didn't allow the debate to deteriorate into the same old Political entrenchment, but genuinely tried to open people up to ideas of how socio-cultural systems develop independent of government intervention.

There was a signing afterwards, and on my way home I wish I'd asked Eno to sign a Christmas card, he was standing next to me in the lobby at the end, and chatting (in a rather stuck up way I thought) about where they were going to go and eat, when Ekow Eshun walked past after clocking off as director, without even noticing Eno as he shot by.

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