EDITOR Allison Druin [e-mail]

My Uncle Used to
Watch Television
Andrew Cyrus Smith

CSIR Meraka Institute | [e-mail]

In writing the latest installment of Lifelong Interactions, I knew I wanted to consider how we as human beings have come full circle from being very physical, to living an abstract life, and eventually to having a need for physicality in our golden years. It just so happened that the day before my deadline for this article, I had an interesting discussion with a colleague and close friend, Chris Krause. During the three years since I started my research on tangible interaction devices, Chris has always kept me on my toes, questioning the value that tangible user interfaces can add to the office environment. Our conversation was enlightening.

Many anthropologists regard the Cradle of Humankind, a region of the heart of South Africa, as the site of man’s origins. It was during Chris’s visit to this place that he realized as humans we have gradually moved from having a direct relation with the events we are responsible for, to being increasingly further removed from the consequences of our actions. After my discussion with Chris about the lifestyle of early man, I began to explore the ramifications of modern man’s technology-driv-en detachment from direct, tactile experiences.

It’s interesting to contrast current methods of subsistence with those used by early man. The hungry caveman would notice his grumbling stomach and go hunt for a meal, or dig for edible roots. Modern man gets his food indirectly.

Consider how you get food on your table. As an
employee, you spend time in a workplace, possibly
an office. At this office you most likely have a com-
puter and earn some reward tokens by typing away
at the keyboard. At the end of the month you are
rewarded through another indirect mechanism that
we call banking. Your employer sends a message to
your bank stating the amount of credits to be added
to your account. No physical objects are trans-
ferred. You then exchange these virtual objects for
real objects at a supermarket, objects that have
been prepared and packaged by a person totally
unrelated to you. And so the supply chain is consti-
tuted: total strangers exchanging virtual objects for
real-world objects.

September + October 2010