The paradox of value
Saw this video some time back and thought it was interesting. After reading Bogost’s Chap 1 & 2, this video made so much sense now.
Water is cheaper than diamond but it doesn’t mean that it is less valuable than diamond. In a situation when we are trapped in a dessert, a water bottle values more than a diamond. Again, it is not about how much things values but what each item can do. If we take out “human theory” in this video and let the otology of diamond and water speaks for itself, can a diamond outdo water? We focus too much on the value of diamonds and we undermined the importance of water.
Today, we discuss the philosophy of how things works in the age of machines.
Uber- the largest cab company without owning any vehicles
AirBnB- the largest rental company without owning any properties
Apple- the largest media company without producing any media content
this theory would sound ridiculously stupid 10-20 years ago but this is how the “system” works now. People tend to see apple as a software/technology company that produce both innovative hardwares and softwares because we only see what apple means and not what apple can do. It changed my perspective when Adrian mentioned how Apple is the largest media publishing company.
By using the Apple illustration, I had a better understanding of the projects and the readings.
I guess, we often focus too much of what an object means and not what it can do- by doing so, we tend to neglect the impact of the object, and not utilising them.
Project updates:
We went to flagstaff garden to observe the happenings in the garden, complied a list of things and sound we heard- the list was massive, we had problem selecting and categorising the list to structure our script initially but we’ve decided to pick random numbers off the list instead of choosing and structuring them because everything in the list are things that represent/describe/part of Flagstaff garden.
We wrote our script and we are in the midst of recording the soundscape.
