Media

by Sandro Pintus

Special Mediartech Internet today and tomorrow. Watch out for the technological gapInterview with Carlo Massarini, presenter of the
Media Mente programme on Rai3

How much has a programme like Media Mente influenced the Italian public in its knowledge about Internet? It has been most important in Italy in that it has contributed towards opening minds. Apart from the actual technology involved, it also involves marketing, philosophy, and an incredible variety of cultural and technological aspects. Internet started late in Italy but this country adores technology, young people love it and we all enjoy comunicating. We will have confirmation of this within a couple of years. Will television disappear? People seem to think that all the things that were well-established previously are going to disappear overnight as soon as something new appears on the market. They thought that the radio was going to be completely taken over by television when it first came out, but it's still going strong. Computers will allow us to have an extremely useful instrument in the home, an answering machine, TV, etc. and perhaps it will just be a stepping stone towards far more developed instruments. How much is this virtual reality likely to influence our lives? Not very much from the grocer's point of view at work, but a great deal as regards experimentation in the arts and sciences. Working methods will change. Existentially speaking, imagining it may even give us added opportunities. Two people would be able to meet each other in a virtual universe, at the Bahamas, for instance. This is an illusion and can be misleading.

Carlo Massarini, presenter of the Media Mente programme on Rai3

What is the real truth? As John Lennon said "...it is whatever happens when you are planning something else..." and this can also be virtual navigation. Are there any dangers in virtual reality? Technology as an end unto itself causes discrimination and on average creates greater divisions than those that already exist. If the minority of people who use high technology today abandon it without allowing similar technological access to countries who cannot afford it, with the result that the fringes of society are unable to use it, then distances are increased. Technology is useful for improving communication, the housewife can do her shopping more easily, the Romanian labourer and immigrant can phone home on the cheap, but if only the child in the family can and knows how to use this technology, then we are cut off. Technology gives us a wonderful chance to help everyone otherwise it is useless to mankind. How do you see the figure of the journalist in Internet? He is freed from his newspaper because he is working in real time. The newspaper journalist of the future will work free lance. Newspapers can be interactive, the public will be able to partecipate directly and all publishing barriers will be broken down.

See also: A journey into the world of possibilities The cultural events and the prizewinning works at Mediatech Interview with Maurizio Nichetti Intervew with Francesco Paolantoni

FAN

FAN-Florence ART News
by
Silvia Messeri & Sandro Pintus