Ted Video Post

Throughout the video a theme of collaboration is seen within each experiment. The purpose of each of Koblin’s experiments is to show how one individual can put forth a small amount of effort unconsciously to a much larger project and observe the results when their effort is paired with thousands of other’s. I believe the video contains somewhat of an ironic message. The whole video revolves around the fact that the 21^st century will be defined by the inter”face” yet all the experiments present the fact that people are becoming more of numbers rather than faces in our society. A great example of this was Aaron’s experiment with the sound. Individually each note that the individual replicated sounded relatively close to the original but when overlapped with thousands of others it was comparable to a raging headache. I think this experiment presents an underlying theme. I think it signifies the fact that as a whole, humanity will never be in unison and there will always be the outcasts, the unhappy, and the unsatisfied. When an idea is presented to one person or a small number it could sound great, but as long as society’s numbers are on the rise there will always be disagreement and humanity will never be satisfied. On the flip side, I believe this experiment shows each individual’s uniqueness. The experiment with the tribute video of Johnny Cash also accomplishes this. The abstractness of the video shows the uniqueness of each individual’s creativity in the drawing they drew. I believe this experiment also shows that with a common concern humanity can unify (this common concern being the love for Johnny Cash). As society is moving to more of a digital age, I believe physical interaction and personal connections will diminish. As of now, society is very much interface based and as this gradually increases, the need for human interaction won’t. These experiments seem all fine and dandy but I believe that society is slowly starting to be pushed farther apart rather than closer together which isn’t what the intention of these experiments were. A interface can be a powerful narrative voice but it only catches certain aspects of humanity, or at least only aspects they want us to see. Even now the media has society brainwashed with only what they want society to see or know. Interfaces will eventually control society and society as we know it will no longer exist.