Once the photograph is made, then the cinema is made. Once radio is made, television is made. Once the computer is done, the Web is made and after each discovery the stench comes under the nose. But, strange to say, not for what came first, but for for what comes next. For the new that advances. Fear of innovating, perhaps, or fear of being misunderstood by the new media. It is astonishing that, among others, people are caught to fear and harshly criticize what is happening in the contemporary world: as if to fear the sans-culottes of communication.
In this regard, one comes to mind sketch by Paolo Villaggio taken from “It’s Sunday, but without obligation”, recently posted by RaiCultura’s Intagram account. In this short monologue, at the center of the viewfinder are the intellectuals that Paolo Villaggio represents as philistines, so much hypocrites to pretend to prefer a semantic treatise to one bet del Cantagiro (or even not knowing it tout-court).
Past the moment of pedagogical television of the sixties, immediately after (these were the years in which television was no longer loved, it was no longer chic, it was no longer cultured, it was no longer elegant, it was no longer intelligent) many snubbed television to the point of denying it and lying saying that it is woe to watch it , woe to be influenced, and so on. Except then discover, again in this sketch, that the songs and TV shows were secretly listened to and watched with amusement, even by the unsuspected.
In short, one fierce, at least in appearance, criticism the contemporary is always around the corner. In the sketch in question, Villaggio told us all this with caricatured irony, but the truth is that perhaps you can read some good literature and at the same time watch some television broadcast, some comic film, some post on Facebook about a video on YouTube, TikTok, podcast and discussion on Clubhouse.
We always think we are with every technological innovation arrived at the definitive, irremediable watershed: probably a short-sightedness of those who have poor memory and the pandemic has exacerbated this feeling of millennial passing more than ever.
Is it a matter of choice? But do we really always have to choose? We’re always on the ridge between past and future? I would say that, potentially, it always is.
Why paper or digital? Why presence or Dad, if we think about teaching? Why the ranking? First that, then this? We should resist the temptation to choose definitively and we should be able to choose, at different times, different solutions. Covid has forced us to have to operate plural and necessary solutions for the contingency of the moment such as greater technological immersion in work, in training, in relationships. And here the debate on digital versus in presence was even more unleashed. Sure! We are far away, we cannot touch (and to think that many times I have been and are bothered by hands that touch me or winking elbows). We have been forced to be far away in physical space, but perhaps we are not never been so close, so close as now, or rather we have never seen each other so often. Seen. I see you and you see me in our screens remaining in a different physical space, but in a common space, I have no doubts.
And therefore it changes space and time. Everything is reduced, but it is also amplified. It is the observer’s point of view (or perception) that expands and narrows space and time. And the culprit once again is the butler: technology that intervenes, as always, as a multiform divinity, always in new guises, but with archaic ruthlessness. It is she who brings us closer and further away. It acts as a mirror and therefore reflects. It acts as a filter and therefore is selective. It acts as an amplification, therefore it increases. He acts as a translator, therefore he interprets or reduces.
Or it is Techné understood as ability to exercise particular skills, to share the knowledge of the rules and that of communication. It is Techné that takes us into the new condition of time and space of our contemporary life. It is Techné that allows us to be pop and intellectual. Contextually.
So much!
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