New Ways of Seeing: can John Berger's classic decode our baffling digital age?

This is an interesting article in The Guardian written recently by artist and writer James Bridle. With the premise of our world feeling like a 'neverland of terrifying tech', Birdle examines how understanding a world in which the most powerful technologies are hard to see (and in many cases we are not even aware of them) might start with the work of John Berger.

Here are a couple of noteworthy snippets:


"It’s one of the ironies of the present age that while we feel that everything has changed, our view seems to be unaltered. If you walk down the street, the buildings, vehicles and people all look much the same as in Berger’s heyday. The digital revolution is largely an invisible one – until you start to look closer. The people are mostly talking to themselves, or staring at their hands, and the banks, post offices and libraries are coffee shops, because most of their functions have moved online. As a result, we rarely “see” the digital world as it really is – even as it makes more and more claims over our lives."



"As Berger wrote in 1972: “We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice.” Beneath the surface of the street, and behind the screens of our computers, hide powerful forces that shape all of our lives. To reckon with them requires a new way of seeing: an understanding of the connections between infrastructure and code, state surveillance and corporate power, social prejudice and algorithmic bias, and the environment and computation. It’s a form of seeing vital to understanding the times we live in, and as at every previous time in history, it’s artists who are helping us to forge it."


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/16/new-ways-of-seeing-john-berger-digital-age-decode-radio-4