IBM Research: Knowledge Socialization: Ideas: Quotes: Technology

For those who think that the "new" technology is really new: This 1914 animation is described by Janet H. Murray in her book Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace.

Winsor McCay, working at the very beginning of film animation in 1914, performed a vaudeville act in which he stood in a spotlight on stage and gave commands to a charming animated dinosaur, named Gertie, who appeared beside him on a giant movie screen. Gertie would have to be coaxed out slowly by him, but then she would perform tricks at his direction, snap at him when she got angry, and cry when he scolded her. At one point in the act McCay would take a prop cardboard apple, turn his back to the audience, and seem to throw it into the screen, where it appeared to land right in Gertie's mouth. At the dramatic climax of the act, McCay walked behind the screen and emerged as an animated drawing of himself. The animated McCay then stepped into Gertie's mouth so that she could lift him onto her back, where he took his bows while Gertie gracefully carried them both offscreen.

Does the date of this vaudeville act surprise you? The similarity to movies made only in the last twenty years? We've become so accustomed lately to the so-called great pace of change that in our minds the past as well as the future has been speeded up. Moving pictures, automobiles, and electric lights were all operating much sooner than most of us remember. "Oh, but they were primitive," we say, "and that doesn't count." Or does it?

At risk in our emphasis on the cutting edge is a devaluation of older truths, as though knowledge not on the cutting edge has no use at all. Old knowledge, such as the power of simply letting people swap stories, can have great power in any age. Even without 3D glasses.