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A few things struck me upon reading Vannevar Bush’s 1945 article ‘As we may think.’ Partly this had to do with the topics covered by Adrian and the tutors in yesterday’s symposium, re: the value of Design Fiction, added to this though, the piece could be considered something of a reference point when evaluating the true extent of the technological developments humanity has observed in recent years, not to mention the complex and unpredictable forms these have taken.

I read the first page of the article without realising it hadn’t been written in modern times … now, this probably says something about my skim reading skillz (it’s pretty much explained in a huge chunk of text from the editor right at the top of the page), or how in touch I have been with current events lately (the article is written in the context of what is obviously World War two, which I just assumed was happening now).

Aside from that though, it speaks volumes of the infinite nature of the developments Bush predicts. In the present day, over half a century after the article’s initial publication, a call for significant development with regard to communication technology remains pertinent. While Bush appears largely to be concerned with the physical aspect of data storage and transmission (the hardware that is necessary to “give man access to and command over the inherited knowledge of the ages” ), we might now consider ourselves to be on the brink of a similarly significant bout of development. As technology itself becomes faster, lighter and more affordable, the applications we find for it surpass even the most optimistic speculations of design fiction. Who would have thought that the devices Bush describes, then only a figment of the imagination for the world’s best and brightest, would prove so accessible as to revolutionise manufacturing, economics, agriculture and communication?

Today it is not the existence of computers themselves that is a testament to the value of design fiction, but the manner in which their intangible extensions (such as the internet) have changed the face of human operation and interaction. This relates nicely to the camera projection Bush seems so excited by.  Describing a ‘walnut’ sized portable camera with 100 hundred exposures, he does not even touch upon the advancement of digital photography as it is today. Due to an inextricable connection with computing technology, we may now take (and instantly view) what is effectively an unlimited number of photographs.

I wonder how Bush might have reacted if told that with the advent of the smart phone, cameras would develop so as to be pocket-sized, make calls, send long tracts of text, access vast stores of information from around the world and send my mum snaps of the inside of my nose while I’m in sitting in a ‘symposium’.